Earthbound 3 Mother 4: War Against the PSI Aliens
by Enterprise F
Summary: The war to save planet Earth from the PSI Alien invasion has begun.  With help from an unexpected ally, the Chosen Four must unlock the power of eight new Sanctuaries, and then take the fight to the PSI Aliens, themselves. Part 3 of 4
1. Chapter 1

Legal Disclaimer: Earthbound is copyright Nintendo. I do not own it, Nintendo does. It and all of its characters were created by Shigesato Itoi. Also, any other Nintendo characters that appear in this story are the property of Nintendo and their respective creators. This story is not for profit.

Earthbound 3/Mother 4

War Against the PSI Aliens

Chapter 1:

The Phase Distorter reappeared in the center of the remains of a town center. The craft floated a few feet above the ground and slowly descended to make a soft landing in the middle of the street. Upon landing safely, Ness glanced at the monitor in front of them to see if they managed to make it to their intended destination. The teens gazed out the window and found that instead of landing in Saturn Valley, they had ended up in the middle of some town they did not recognize. At least, that is where it seemed like they appeared. The town appeared to be deserted, though. Upon further glance the buildings looked to have suffered severe damage and were in a state of extreme disrepair. The damage did not look to be due to neglect either. There were scorch marks and some holes in the remains of the buildings. Debris also seemed to litter the roadway. Ness began to wonder if they had arrived in the correct time period, and if somehow they had, were they in the middle of a city that had been destroyed by nuclear weapons. "So, did we make it?" Paula asked, scanning the exterior surroundings outside the window. Ness double-checked his instruments to see if they had remained on course, as well as the radiation levels to see if they were hazardous. So far, according to the sensors, radiation levels were safe. He then went to check to see if Jeff's life signs were registering on the Phase Distorter's sensors. He pushed a button on the console and a display came to life in the cockpit. A green light was flashing. Indeed, they had come to the correct time. Jeff Andonuts was here.

"It appears we have," Ness replied, after confirming that Jeff was in this time. He pointed out Jeff's life signs on the computer screen to Paula and Poo. The only issue now, was whether or not they were still in Saturn Valley, as Apple Kid had said they would be. It was a pretty out of the way place, so Ness thought that it would have likely remained secret. However, there was still the chance that it could have been discovered, so he did not discount the fact that it was possible that had Saturn Valley been discovered, that people could have developed it into a city. Not only that, but the Mr. Saturns were pretty advanced technologically, themselves. They could have developed the valley as well. At least, the group knew that Jeff was here. All they needed to do now was to find him, and hopefully some more Zexonyte for the return trip, and get back home.

Paula's eyes soon began to glow, as did Poo's. "What is it?" Ness asked his friends, noticing that their glowing eyes. He did not want to experience any unpleasant surprises this soon, so any heads up on what they may potentially face would be helpful.

Paula's eyes then widened and she cried, "Run!"

Immediately, Poo blew off the door to the Phase Distorter and the trio fled the machine. Just as they had gotten clear of the boarding ramp, they saw a purplish blob of what looked to be plasma streaking towards the machine. _Oh no, not again_, Ness thought with dread, as well as anger. He almost hoped that the plasma blob was aimed for them since he could protect the party more easily than the Phase Distorter. He raised a Shield Sigma over the party as they fled the Phase Distorter, and tried to extend it over the machine as well, but he was straining to do so the farther away he got from the machine. Indeed, the plasma weapon struck the shield right on top of the Phase Distorter and detonated in a massive explosion. The explosion was tremendous, far greater than he expected a missile like that to generate. It appeared equal in explosive yield to a Daisy Cutter bomb. An indigo fire washed over the shield after the impact. The sight was startling enough to cause Ness and Paula to recoil. Poo remained calm in the face of the explosion, though. As for the shield, itself, the shield strained, but managed to remain intact. Ness was uncertain how long the shield would remain so, however, given the power of the weapon that had been used on it.

"Were we targeted specifically?" he quickly asked Paula.

Paula shook her head. "No," she answered. "The gunner was specifically going for the Phase Distorter, and us."

This gave Ness no comfort. Without the Phase Distorter, there was no way back to their own time period, which meant that whoever was piloting the craft may have known who he or she was dealing with. Ness made his way back to the Phase Distorter and turned to Paula, telling her, "Okay Paula, scan the area thoroughly. I need to know who's firing on us, and where they are, now. My shield won't hold against many more of those blasts."

"Got it," Paula replied. She then closed her eyes for a moment as another blob of purple plasma came down and struck Ness's shield. An indigo flame washed over the shield as it flared into existence. Poo quickly added another layer to Ness's shield in order to ensure that it would hold.

"He's two miles west!" Paula blurted out. "He's inside a Fighter UFO and is targeting our…no wait. The Fighter UFO is flying away," she told them. She stopped speaking for a moment as she tried to glean what the fighter UFO was planning. Her jaw soon hung open and she was speechless for a moment. "Raise the shield to maximum!" she cried frantically. "We're being targeted from orbit!"

Ness immediately brought in the shield and both he and Poo raised the shield to its maximum level. Poo then scanned for any sources of energy that may be near. The party huddled close to the Phase Distorter and extended the shield as far and high as it would go. The party looked up and saw a series of white clouds in the sky. A hole quickly opened in one of the clouds as a green beam passed through. Poo's eyes went wide as he sensed that the beam of energy that yielded in excess of twenty terawatts. "Brace yourselves!" he cried as the beam struck the shield erected over them. The shield flared as the beam struck and it strained to keep the energy from the beam from penetrating the shield and vaporizing them, along with most of the town in the process. Ness then pushed more energy into the shield to keep it at full strength. They each knew that if that beam managed to penetrate the shield, they were dead and there was nothing that would be able to revive them. The beam continued to pour on the shield that was the only thing protecting Ness and his friends. The air above them, burned and vaporized by the beam as it splashed against the shield and was deflected away, seemed to catch fire. Ness did his best to keep enough air close to them so that they would not pass out or suffocate before the beam shut off. This was in addition to maintaining the shield that he had erected, which was already showing signs of strain and beginning to crack. He had to pull in the shield so no holes would form, allowing some of the beam's energy to leech through and kill them. Ness proceeded to use some of the energy his shield was absorbing from the beam and redirect it into his own shield in order to recharge it and hopefully have it last longer. Ness did not know how long he would be able to do this, though, since it also took intense concentration to prevent his shield, and himself, from overloading and having the shield collapse. So far, the shield had managed to hold against the beam for ten seconds. After five more seconds, the beam terminated.

Upon the beam's termination, Ness let his shield fall, which had nearly been breached by the beam. Upon lowering the shield, Ness's eyes stopped glowing and returned to normal. He promptly fell to the ground, exhausted; or would have, but Paula and Poo dashed over and managed to catch him before he fell. They then lowered him to the ground slowly. He was breathing heavily, due to the mental fatigue as well as some physical fatigue due to the energy he had to push into his shield, as well as absorbing the energy and deflecting it without blowing up the town they had found themselves in. After a few seconds, though, he slowly rose again. Paula rushed over to his side, but he warded her off. "Don't worry about me," he told her kindly, in between heavy breaths. "I'm fine." He eventually made it all the way up and then proceeded to take a few uneasy steps forward. Slowly, but surely, his gait returned to normal. The others followed closely. Once they were satisfied that Ness was okay they went back to the Phase Distorter. Ness followed them but he could not shake the feeling that something was coming.

"Be ready for anything," he warned. "It seems as if Giygas and his people have taken over, here."

"We don't know that, yet," Poo responded, trying to sound hopeful. But he, too, was feeling that the PSI Aliens had arrived and were launching an all out attack. Nothing like the beam they just stopped had ever happened during their last adventures. That indicated that they had clear orbital superiority, and they had brought their big ships.

"Yes, we do," Paula countered darkly in a low voice. "I could sense it. The Starmen have begun their invasion in earnest. That was all I could get before the pilot of the craft nearly discovered me and I had to cut off my scan. But from all indications, things don't look good for humanity."

"Great," Ness muttered. "This means that there's a chance that Jeff's been captured, or worse."

"Let's hope not," Paula said, trying to force herself to remain positive. "Don't forget that the Phase Distorter did pick up his life signs, so we know that he is still alive, for the moment."

Paula's reassuring statement seemed to bolster their mood as they proceeded back to the Phase Distorter. As the trio approached the Phase Distorter, a green orb of energy came down from the sky and struck the Phase Distorter. The orb instantly burned its way through the machine's hull and exploded, annihilating the Phase Distorter and launching debris right at the party. Poo instantly raised a Shield Sigma to protect the party from the incoming shrapnel, as well as making it so that raising another shield was not Ness's duty. He had already expended a great deal of energy protecting them from the orbital attack. Several more green orbs rained down upon the party, instantly penetrating the shield that Poo had erected and striking amidst the heroes. No words needed to be said. The party realized that the orbs were from a Starstorm attack. Paula immediately raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party, reflecting the few remaining stars that had yet to strike the shield. After impacting her shield, the stars rocketed back into the air and several explosions could be heard in the sky, as well as a couple flashes of light. Paula's eyes started to glow as she extended her telepathic senses up into he sky. She could sense two threats descending towards the party. Paula psychically warned them of what they could expect as a Starman descended onto the scene. Much to their surprise, though, this was merely a normal Starman in a normal silver uniform. No spikes protruded from its shoulders or helmet, which would have indicated that the Starman was a Starman Deluxe. The teens waited to see if any other Starmen came along, since regular rank and file Starmen had never demonstrated the ability to use any offensive PSI before, much less something on the level of PSI Starstorm. So far, no other Starmen came with the first arrival, but in the sky, a small disc was rapidly growing in size as what the teens quickly saw was a starship descended onto the scene. As the ship got closer and closer to the ground, Ness realized that the ship appeared at the very least to be the size of Onett. It was easily the size of the town that the group currently found themselves in. _That's the ship that fired on us_, Paula informed the group telepathically as the massive flying saucer ceased its descent while still a few hundred feet in the air. There was a large round device in the center of the craft that appeared to be the focal point of a massively powerful beam weapon. The Starman stopped his descent a few feet above the wreckage of the Phase Distorter and fired some more purple beams of energy from his visor into the remains. Several explosions later, there was nothing remaining of the Phase Distorter except some burnt metal that was not even good enough to be used as scrap. The Starman then turned towards the human psychics and stared at them.

"Human psychics were able to erect a shield that managed to stop a beam with the equivalent energy of, what in human terms, would be a multi-kiloton level explosion," the Starman noted casually, focusing his gaze upon the three teens. "Impressive. Who are you?" the Starman asked. "And where do you come from?"

Ness and the others glanced at each other. In unison, they decided not to answer the query of the Starman. They noted that the voice of this Starman was much more natural sounding, and less mechanical, than the voices of the previous Starmen, though they had mostly been Starman Deluxes and Starman Supers.

"You won't answer?" the Starman asked with mild annoyance. "It won't really matter. We'll find out who you are, one way or the other," he said casually, as if he were just going about his daily business.

The Starman then opened the new battle by powering launching stream of PSI Thunder Omega from one of his tentacles right at Ness. The PSI Thunder Omega instantly penetrated Paula's psychic counter shield and struck Ness directly in the chest. Unfortunately, for the Starman, Ness was wearing his Franklin Badge. A loud metal clang sounded as the lightning struck Ness and was reflected back at the Starman. The Starman recoiled in shock as the lightning made its way back towards him. The Starman's psychic shield was unable to block the reflected Thunder attack and the lightning struck the Starman squarely in the chest, burning a hole into it, electricity also arcing all over his body. The wounds suffered by the Starman were almost instantly fatal, but before the Starman had died, he had managed to give one last psychic order to the massive ship above. _Attack_! The ship then complied with the order.

The ship's semi-spherical bulge at center of the bottom began to glow orange. Electricity crackled around the bulge and flowed into the bulge, causing it to glow purple. As more and more energy flowed into the bulge the bulge glowed blue, and finally, green.

"They're powering up another blast!" Poo called out in warning. Wasting no time, Ness and Poo immediately powered their own psychic attacks, PSI Rockin and PSI Starstorm to their Omega levels, since they did not want to risk not having enough psychic energy left to power a shield that would be strong enough to protect them from the energy blast. They only had one shot at taking down this ship, hopefully without destroying what remained of the town they currently inhabited. Ness's pulsing red orb of psychic energy grew to the size of a beach ball, while dozens of blue orbs the size of grapefruits formed around Poo. They quickly turned to Paula and, after reading their minds, answered their question, calling out over the din of the ship's engines and the powering of the weapon, "The ship's primary weaknesses are the focal point of the energy beam, right above, and the energy core, which deploys directly from what would normally be the ship's bottom. If you take either of them out, the ship will be destroyed."

That was all that Ness and Poo needed to hear. They proceeded to launch their attacks directly at the round bulge in the center of the ship, the focal point for the energy beam that was about to vaporize them, and likely the rest of the town. The psychic attacks streaked towards the bulge, phasing through the shields of the enemy ship, and colliding with the field of energy that was forming, and about to fire the beam. Ness's Rockin Omega soon breached the field of energy and struck the hull of the ship, penetrating the armored hull and plowing its way though the ship, to the center, where it exploded, the force of its explosion emerging from the "upper" part of the ship, with the energy core of the ship exploding as well. Debris rained down onto the streets surrounding the party. Ness quickly raised a Shield Sigma over the party, just in case any of the debris came too close to striking them. The teens looked into the sky as the ship began to crack from the core of the ship, outward, flames appearing in the cracks, with a few extra explosions issuing from various areas of the ship where a small group of stars from Poo's Starstorm barrage managed to hit. Poo immediately held back the rest of his Starstorm attack, readying himself to use it to destroy the larger pieces of debris that might rain down upon the residential areas close to the edge of town. Paula went over to him and joined her mind with his so that she could help guide his attack when the time came. Ness also powered another Rockin attack so that his ball could vaporize a significant portion of the debris that would rain down on the town.

The ship continued to crack until the walls of the side of the flying saucer burst open, flames spewing out of the doomed craft. Ness saw several flaming Roswell Grays jumping from the doomed ship, screaming on their way down to the ground, where their impacts with the ground ended their lives. Several more flaming figures hurled themselves from the ship as well, a couple of them appearing to be human. Ship then began to break apart, raining debris all over the streets. It was then that Ness fired off his ball of PSI Rockin right at one of the larger pieces of the starship that had broken free of the main ship. Ness's ball of Rockin struck the metallic remains of the ship and exploded, a globe of scarlet energy vaporizing the debris piece of the ship. Poo was also using his own Starstorm Omega to intercept the remaining larger pieces of debris that would have fallen onto the residential area of the town. The only pieces of debris that rained down onto the streets were smaller, and less dangerous, shards of metal. When it was over, and the threat had passed, the partially destroyed buildings in the center of town looked to be no more heavily damaged than they previously had been. Ness felt that it was fortunate that the center of town had been deserted.

Once the battle was over, the three psychics took stock of themselves. "Everyone okay?" Ness called out to the others.

"I'm fine," Paula responded.

"I'm okay, too," Poo answered.

_Now the only question is where are we_? Ness thought to himself. The layout of the town seemed eerily familiar, yet due to the damage the buildings had suffered, he could not recognize the place. He was about to walk forward when he felt a familiar sensation, which was strange considering the fact that he was not usually able to sense another's energy. This feeling was familiar, though. _My Sanctuary_, Ness thought. He could sense one of His Sanctuaries here. That narrowed down the list of possibilities of where he could be. His eyes then widened in realization. He then desperately hoped that he was wrong about his supposition. He turned back and told the others, "Follow me. I may have an idea of where we are." _I just hope that I'm wrong_, he thought to himself.

With that, the team unfolded their bikes and proceeded north along the street. As they were riding, they heard the sounds of explosions in the distance. Numerous flashes of light lit up the horizon, despite it seemingly being the middle of the day. The trio stopped for a moment to assess the situation. After a moment, Paula broke the silence. "There's a battle going on in the residential areas of…Onett?" She hesitated for a moment before saying the name of the town.

"Onett?" Ness echoed quietly. "So this _is_ my hometown," he lamented.

"More like was," Paula corrected, in a melancholy tone. "Onett was recently attacked and most of its urban area lie in ruins. The residential areas are still mostly undisturbed, though that is changing."

"What's happening in the residential areas?" Ness asked quickly, in a worried tone.

"The residential areas are under attack. I know that the PSI Aliens are behind the attack, though the attackers seem to mostly be rank and file soldiers: aliens from various worlds, some familiar, some radically different."

"So we don't know for certain what we're going to end up facing," Poo stated.

Paula shook her head. "Not for certain, no. But I doubt that it'll be anything like Giygas."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Poo cautioned. "I don't exactly remember Starmen having PSI Starstorm or PSI Thunder in their arsenals, much less having PSI Shield Alphas being an automatic defense.

"True," Paula conceded. "Still, helping out the people there will be our best bet for finding out what's going on here. Besides, maybe we'll get lucky and whoever is in the residential areas of Onett they may even know what happened to Jeff or where he is."

Poo had no argument against that. After all, he had a need to fight for justice that was borderline obsessive. Still, he did not want Ness or Paula to underestimate their enemies. They had already found that the regular Starmen of this time were much stronger than the Starmen they were used to facing. Who knew how powerful the Starman Supers or Starman Deluxes would be in this time…to say nothing of potential Ghosts of Starmen or Final Starmen. As it was, though, the teens knew that there were people in this future Onett that needed help, and they were going to assist them in whatever way they could. To that end, the party quickened their pace towards the residential areas in the hills.

Before making it to the hills of Onett, the party noticed a young seemingly Caucasian girl with pink hair who looked to be no older than five or six years old darting from shadow to shadow, which was difficult since it was midday. Still, she somehow managed to do so, and quickly. Had the teens not looked directly in front of them while she was running, they would have missed her. Both Paula and Poo did a cursory scan of the area and they both confirmed the party's suspicions. The young girl was psychic. Not only that, though, they also sensed that she was not alone. _Trouble_, Paula warned Ness telepathically. _The girl's being tracked_.

Just then, a Starman and aliens that looked like two Roswell Grays burst onto the scene standing directly in front of the girl. "Target found," the Starman declared. "Shall I kill her?" There was a pause from the Starman, as if waiting for confirmation of the kill order. However, his pause would be fatal for his cohorts, and cause a noticeable amount of pain for him, for the girl immediately stretched out her hand and unleashed a stream of lightning at the Starman and his two cohorts. The Starman recoiled in surprise at the bolt an instant before it struck him in the chest. The bolt of lightning was not strong enough to blow a hole in the Starman's chest, but it did manage to collapse his psychic shield and inflict some damage to the Starman. The Starman cried out in pain and anger as he fell to the ground, electricity arcing across his body, but he was not dead yet. The two Roswell grays, however, were not so fortunate. The girl's stream of lightning had struck them and literally reduced them to dust before they were able to level their pistols at the young child. The Starman, however, recovered quickly and then began to power his own blast of PSI Thunder and target the girl. However, the girl was faster on the draw than the Starman, for she had already unleashed a blast of PSI Freeze Alpha at the Starman. A snowflake of psychic energy rocketed over to the Starman and before he could react and raise a shield or launch an attack, the snowflake of freezing psychic energy struck the alien and exploded. The explosion engulfed the alien and also had the secondary effect of encasing the Starman in a block of ice. The girl was not finished yet, though. She then rushed towards the frozen Starman and knocked him over. When the Starman fell to the ground he shattered into a thousand pieces. The young girl then exhaled and slumped to the ground, exhausted.

After the fight had concluded, Ness and the others rushed over to the girl's aid. She saw them coming and gasped before rising and trying to flee. "Wait," Ness called after the young girl. "We're not your enemies."

She stumbled a bit as she continued to run from the trio until she abruptly skidded to a halt at the top of a small hill and quickly came running back towards them. Ness and the others knew that this could only mean one thing. Over the crest of the hill came a Starman, two elves that Ness took to be Light Elves, and two more Roswell Grays. The girl retreated from the aliens and ran past the teens, the group parting to let her pass, and then closed ranks to separate the aliens from the girl. "Poo, keep an eye on that girl," Ness ordered. "We'll handle the Starman and his entourage."

Poo nodded and went over to look after the girl. The girl saw him coming and at first turned to flee, but she soon sensed the older boy's compassion and his will to protect her. She then decided to remain under his care as he ushered her into a shadow. He quickly scanned the surroundings to see if there were any other strange energy signatures. He sensed none in close proximity, but he could sense several energy signals in the hills of Onett off in the distance. There he waited with the girl, ready to aid Ness and Paula should they need any assistance, but he doubted that they would need it.

The Starman and his cohorts stopped when they were within a few meters of the two human children standing before them. "There is a pink-haired girl, about six years old or so," the Starman told them in a strong voice. "She was seen in the vicinity of this area a few minutes ago. You could not have missed her. This girl is a psychic. You know our master's demands. You will surrender this psychic to us or face the consequences."

"No," was Ness's only response, delivered in a cold and hard voice. Paula echoed his response.

"Then you leave us little choice humans. Prepare to die."

The Starman began to power up a psychic attack but Paula launched an attack of her own first as she unleashed a volley of PSI Thunder at the alien party. Her attack pierced the Starman's shield and killed him instantly, his corpse falling to the ground as lightning arced over it. Upon falling to the ground, it broke apart and was reduced to dust. In addition to the Starman, an elf and a Roswell Gray were also killed. These were instantly reduced to ashes by Paula's attack.

The survivors were now frantic. "These humans are psychic!" they cried, despite not having witnessed any of Ness's power. "Kill them! Kill them!" they cried. The elf drew his sword and the surviving Roswell Gray took out his laser pistol and leveled it at the two teens. Ness casually raised a Shield Omega over himself and Paula. The elf swung down at Ness in order to cleave him in half, but the shield stopped the blade mid-swing. Not only that, but as the shield flared from the impact, it pushed against the blade and sent it back against the elf. The elf was unable to prevent his sword from embedding itself in his head. The elf fell over onto the ground, dead. The remaining Roswell Gray apparently did not notice his cohort's fate, as he opened fire on Ness and Paula, his laser pistol spewing out pink energy bolts. The energy bolts struck the shield and were immediately reflected back at the alien, burning two holes in the alien's chest. The Roswell Gray fell over onto the ground, smoke issuing from the wounds.

When the battle was over, Poo and the girl came out from the shadows and rushed over to Ness and Paula. "You two alright?" he asked.

The two teens nodded. Paula then turned sharply to her left. Out from shadow of one of the buildings emerged two humans, one male, one female. They looked to be in their late twenties to their early thirties. The man was Caucasian and had short, brown hair and was dressed in a flannel shirt and khaki pants while the woman was oriental and had jet black hair and was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. They were both armed. The man had a military-grade rifle that Ness suspected was a machine gun of some sort, while the woman was armed with a pistol, but he quickly noticed that she had a second pistol holstered at her hip. The two took one look at the girl and cried out in glee, "Kumatora!" They proceeded to run towards her and the party.

"Mommy, Daddy," Kumatora cried as she ran towards them as well. When the group met, the parents embraced their child, and she returned their embrace.

"We were so worried about you," the mother said, hugging Kumatora. Kumatora merely laughed as she returned her mother's hug.

Ness and Poo gazed at the touching scene and smiled. This was why they fought for justice and peace. They wanted to see more reunions like this, and fewer funerals. They both turned to Paula, who was still on guard.

"What is it?" Ness asked.

"It's not over yet," came Paula's response. Just then, an explosion occurred near the psychics, throwing up a cloud of dust, obscuring their view of the incoming enemy or enemies. Ness and Paula went over to Kumatora and her parents, waiting to see who, or what, approached before deciding on what shield to raise over the party. After the cloud of dust cleared, Ness could make out a Starman, two Faeries, and three elves. Ness and the others steeled themselves for battle. Ness went over to Kumatora's parents and told them, "Get out of here, now. We'll cover your escape."

Kumatora's father looked down at the ground. "It won't do any good," he said gravely. "The aliens have already chased us out of the residential areas, and we have nowhere else to go around here."

"What do you mean you have nowhere else to go?" Paula asked. "Don't you have family anywhere else?"

"That's not it," Kumatora's father said in a solemn tone. He paused before explaining, "It's that Onett, here, is the only town in the area that has not been completely destroyed by the PSI Aliens. Threed was destroyed before the war. Twoson and Fourside were destroyed in the opening days of the aliens' initial arrival in three years ago. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that they waited so long to take out Onett."

This troubled the three psychic teens, especially Paula since she was from Twoson. "Were there any survivors of Twoson's destruction?" Paula asked almost frantically.

Kumatora's father nodded. "Yes. We were survivors of the attack, having evacuated when the aliens first arrived. A lot of people didn't, though."

"Was there a family that went by the name of Polestar in Twoson at the time you were living in the city?" was Paula's next question.

Kumatora's mother shook her head. "No, there wasn't." She then thought for a moment, trying to remember something. She then spoke again. "If my memory serves me, the Polestars were a family of teachers that built the Polestar Preschool. Their daughter was a known psychic. It was likely the reason why Twoson was one of the first targets. However, they disappeared in 200X along with their daughter just as suddenly as they had appeared almost thirteen years earlier."

This answer both surprised Paula as well as gave her hope. She did not dwell on the part where her parents had suddenly appeared in Twoson around the time of her birth. What mattered to her was the fact that they may have still been alive. Paula's musing would have to wait, though, for the Starman and his squadron were now coming straight towards them.

Ness then informed everyone of his battle plan. "Paula, you and Poo deal with the Starman. The others and I will focus on the Faeries and elves. They don't have psychic shields so they can be attacked safely."

"Right," Paula and Poo replied in unison. Poo had no problems taking orders from the younger psychic in this situation. After all, Ness had even more experience on these types of adventures than he did. Paula and Poo then headed straight for the Starman, while the Starman's cohorts, noticing that Ness was standing near their quarry, made a beeline straight for Ness and Kumatora's family. This proved to be a fatal mistake, since they had now separated themselves from the Starman and his psychic powers. Kumatora's parents directed their daughter to cover her ears as they opened fire on the elves and Faeries. One of the Faeries got a little too close to the party and was quickly riddled with bullet holes as the adults opened fire on him, the sound of gunshots echoing throughout the street. The Faerie fell to the ground, leaking energy and a bluish gas from his body as he fell. Ness quickly took out one of his two remaining regular strength Bombs and, after pushing the activation stud, hurled it at the rest of the oncoming force. The bomb landed among the remaining Faeries and elves and detonated. The explosion tore apart one of the elves, and hurled the other assailants in all directions, shrapnel shredding their bodies. The aliens landed in various locations and remained still. Ness then went back to guard Kumatora's family from any further attack.

Meanwhile, Paula and Poo were battling the Starman whose orders were to find and capture the psychic child. He, however, was not surprised to find two more psychics defending the child. The Starman began the battle by firing a blast of PSI Thunder at Paula and Poo. Both Paula and Poo, however, knew PSI Thunder so they were able to absorb the attack, suffering only minimal inconvenience from the attack. Paula and Poo then retaliated with PSI Thunder attacks of their own. The blasts of PSI Thunder collapsed the psychic shield of the Starman and managed to strike the Starman directly. The Starman was still a skilled psychic, though, seemingly far more so than the previous two new Starmen that the group had faced, and would not be taken down so easily. One PSI Thunder would have already been insufficient to kill the psychic alien, however, two blasts at their Gamma level should have been sufficient to kill the Starman. However, the Starman remained standing, though he was wobbly on his feet. Poo took advantage of the situation and charged the Starman. He was not able to react fast enough to Poo's charge and he was stabbed in the head by Poo's Sword of Kings. The Starman's limbs went limp and he slumped over. Poo withdrew his katana and the Starman fell to the ground, dead. Paula and Poo then went over to Ness and Kumatora's family, hoping to find a safe place to stay until they could decide on a course of action. As the two teens approached Ness, a figure appeared in front of them, separating the two parties. Ness and the others gasped at the sight of the figure, for the figure was none other than Giygas. At the sight of Ness, Giygas grinned.

"So, you've finally arrived," he said as if he had been expecting them. "I was wondering when you would finally appear. By the way, nice job on the City Smasher, Ness. I must admit I'm impressed."

Ness grimaced. He knew that Giygas was still too powerful for them to take head on. "We have to get out of here," Kumatora's father warned. "This is the aliens' leader, Giygas."

"Yeah, I know," Ness muttered.

"You won't escape me this time," Giygas declared. This brought expressions of shock to the faces of Kumatora's parents, as well as to the girl. "But we'll have to continue our battle another day. Today, I've come for the girl." Giygas then approached them casually, as if Ness were nothing more than an insect, despite knowing that Ness was anything but an insect, even if he could reliably defeat him without too much trouble.

"You'll have to get through me to take her," Ness declared, trying to sound as confident as he could. Truthfully, though, Ness was terrified, something that Ness had rarely, if ever, felt before; and he did not like this feeling at all. Giygas laughed at Ness's statement, instantly feeling Ness's fear as well.

"You may be able to hurt me, Ness. But even with everyone here, you won't be able to kill me," Giygas stated matter-of-factly. "I'm just too strong for you right now."

What Giygas did not seem to notice, though, was the fact that Paula and Poo had drawn their weapons and were coming up from behind him. Poo immediately went to stab Giygas through the heart with his katana, while Paula was about to shatter Giygas's skull with a bash from her frying pan. Unfortunately, Giygas sensed the attacks coming since before they had decided to attack. Giygas turned and intercepted Poo's sword, catching it in his hands, while he knocked Paula's frying pan out of her hands, sending it flying through the air. It landed several yards away from Paula. He proceeded to punch Poo in the abdomen, causing him to violently exhale all of the air from his lungs. Poo then fell to the ground gasping for air after having the wind knocked out of him. Giygas then proceeded to grab Paula by the throat and tightened his grip, cutting off her air supply. Unlike so many other choking victims in science fiction, though, Paula did not flail about helplessly, grabbing at her throat. She used this opportunity to launch a psychic attack on Giygas, hoping that it would cause him to loosen his grip on her and allow her to break free before she lost consciousness. She unleashed a stream PSI Fire at its Omega level upon the psychic alien. The attack did not seem to affect Giygas, even though he did not appear to have erected a psychic shield over his body. Giygas merely tightened his grip as Paula pushed more energy into the flame and focused the stream even more, hoping to inflict some damage on Giygas. Even though Paula's attack was doing little damage to Giygas, it did give Ness an opening in which he could attack. Ness drew out his bat and he charged the psychic alien. Paula quickly changed tactics and telepathically assaulted Giygas. He was able to repulse her assault, but her attack had done its job. It allowed Ness to get close enough to Giygas to attack him with his bat since Giygas did, in fact, have a psychic shield erected. Giygas was able to sense Ness coming, but not before Ness managed to connect with his attack. He brought his bat down upon the head of Giygas. The bat impacted his head and a loud crack could be heard, as if he was hitting a baseball. The attack stunned Giygas, causing him to loosen his grip on Paula. Paula then proceeded to kick his hand and break free of his grasp. She then went over to check on Poo, who was still recovering from Giygas's punch.

Giygas quickly regained his composure and he stared Ness in the eyes. "A good strike, but you will need to do more than that if you want to defeat me." Giygas then stretched out his hands and fired three bolts of lightning. At first, Ness stood ready to intercept the attack, since his Franklin Badge would protect him from Giygas's lightning. However, his attacks missed Ness entirely. Only then did he realize that Giygas was not aiming for him, but for Kumatora and her family. Ness could not intercept all of the attacks, so he went to intercept the attack that was headed for Kumatora. He suddenly appeared in front of the girl as the lightning struck him. The telltale sound of lightning being reflected by the Franklin Badge rang out as the lightning bolt was redirected at Giygas. Sadly, Kumatora's parents were not so lucky. Giygas's PSI Thunder struck the two humans and felled them, lightning arcing across their bodies. However, even after they fell, Ness could see their chests rising and falling, indicating that they were still alive. Ness then turned back to face Giygas only to see that he was gone.

"Behind you!" Paula and Poo cried out as Ness was struck by a blast of telekinesis and sent flying. Ness used his own telekinesis to arrest his momentum and managed to land on his feet, skidding to a halt a few yards away. He then focused his attention back on Giygas. He powered a blast of PSI Rockin and targeted the alien. Giygas then revealed his secret when he pulled Kumatora from the ground and held her in front of his body. "I wouldn't," he warned with a grin. He then turned the girl's head to face him and used Hypnosis on her in order to put her to sleep. The girl managed to resist the attack for a few moments, but eventually, she fell asleep in Giygas's grasp.

A Starman Deluxe then appeared next to Giygas and informed him, "Master, we are having problems with the other psychic children in the hills of Onett. They are requesting your help in dealing with the problem."

Giygas frowned as he turned to face the Starman Deluxe. "Go to the hills and handle the situation yourself. I have to take this child back to base."

"I understand, Master," the Starman Deluxe replied, bowing before Giygas. He then turned to look at the unconscious parents of the psychic child. "Shall I kill these two humans, Master?" he asked. His tone indicated that he relished the prospect of killing the humans.

"No," Giygas responded forcefully. "I have need of them. Just as I have need of the parents of the psychic twins. When you go to the hills, do your best to make sure that the parents are not killed. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," the Starman Deluxe answered, his disappointment evident by the sound of his voice. Two normal Starman then appeared and bent down and lifted the parents of Kumatora over their shoulders.

Giygas then turned back to Ness and the others and said, "Until we meet again." He then grinned as he added, "And next time, bring Jeff with you. I kept him in stasis since we captured him specifically so you could have a special reunion." Giygas then disappeared with the girl in his hands. The Starmen who had appeared and grabbed Kumatora's parents also disappeared with the captives. Ness and the others gritted their teeth at the recent turn of events. Still, they knew that there was another psychic family they could help in the hills of Onett. Not only that, but they knew now that Jeff was alive, though he was still a prisoner of Giygas. Without wasting any more time, Ness and Paula unfolded their bikes once more and rode towards the hills of Onett as fast as they possibly could with Poo right on their heels.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

Ness and the others continued towards the hills of Onett. During the ride, the teens heard the roars of jet engines and the hum of what sounded like UFO engines above them. Explosions also rang out over the town. Looking up into the sky, they found that Earth forces and alien UFOs were already engaged in heated dogfights over the town. Missiles launched from more than a dozen miles away zeroed in on Fighter UFOs and detonated, blowing apart the flying saucers with single hits. The surviving UFOs returned fire with their energy cannons, but only managed to shoot down a few of the Earth fighters. And of those that were shot down, their pilots managed to eject from their doomed craft safely. Ness noticed that the human jet fighters looked similar to the fighter aircraft of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, but there were noticeable differences as well. Ness heard the roar of jet engines from behind and a flight of four fighters rocketed towards the fray, firing their missiles into the aerial melee, taking down more UFOs. The UFOs also returned fire, however the fighters' evasive maneuvers made them difficult targets for the surviving UFOs. The UFOs fired wildly at the juking and jiving fighters, not managing to score a single kill. The same could not be said about the fighters' second volley of missile fire. Ness also noticed that a few missiles were directed towards the ground somewhere in the hills as well. The sky flashed as the missiles exploded in the distance. The party quickened their pace as it was evident that a full-scale battle was taking place in the hills of Onett.

In the hills of Onett, near a plain, modest-sized brick house, Captain Flint Sanders and his wife, Hinawa, were doing their best to hold off the forces of the PSI Aliens and prevent them from taking and/or killing their twin infant children, merely a few months old, who were huddled together behind their mother. Two Lesser Mooks and a Mook Senior appeared on the scene and targeted the duo with a blast of PSI Freeze Alpha. Snowflakes of psychic energy appeared over the heads of the tentacled creatures and, upon the aliens pointing their tentacles towards the humans, flew towards their targets. However, the snowflakes were slow and easy to evade, even for normal humans. Flint and Hinawa were over ten yards away from the snowflakes as they detonated, inflicting no harm to the humans. Flint and Hinawa returned fire with blasts of energy from Flint's Energy Rifle, and Hinawa's laser pistol. The blue and scarlet energy bolts struck the Mooks straight in their centers of mass and the creatures were quickly felled by the withering fire. However, just as the first two aliens were defeated, many more appeared to take their place. These consisted of Mooks of all types, robots, elves, and even a couple of Faeries. There were too many enemies for Flint and Hinawa to fight off on their own. Hinawa retreated to protect her children. Just as she approached her children, a Faerie appeared directly between her and the children. "Lucas, Claus!" she cried as the Faerie went to grab the children. Seeing little choice, she drew her laser pistol and pointed at the Faerie's torso and pulled the trigger. A scarlet beam emerged from the barrel of the laser pistol and instantly burned a hole into the torso of the alien soldier. The Faerie staggered forward and fell before he managed to reach the twin infants that were sitting in the stroller. Hinawa approached the fallen alien, who was still twitching, and she pointed her gun at the alien. She proceeded to pull the trigger. Another laser blast erupted from the barrel and burned a hole into the Faerie. She then pulled the trigger again, and again, and again. After she was finished, the Faerie's body was covered with holes, with three of them in the creature's head. Hinawa then rushed over to her children to protect them from the other aliens.

"Hinawa, get out of here!" Flint yelled, his fear for the safety of his wife and children evident in his voice. "I'll cover you, get the kids to safety!"

Hinawa hesitated for a moment. "What about you?" she called back at the top of her voice.

"I can handle this," Flint responded. He tried to hide it, but Hinawa could tell that Flint knew the true severity situation. There was no way that he would be able to hold off all of their attackers, especially not with more teleporting in and jumping out of landing UFOs that lowered just long enough to deliver their cargo and then rejoin the air battle. She was thankful that Flint's distress call had been answered by the survivors of the destruction of the Threed Air Base three years ago. Still, she knew that the fighters and the attack aircraft were still fighting it out for air superiority over Onett. The fact that the cargo transport that had been called in to evacuate the civilians of Onett, Flint's family included, had been destroyed before it even got close was another blow to their chances of escaping this battle alive.

Eventually, Hinawa knew that the survival of their sons the primary mission here. She looked back at Flint and tears formed in her eyes as he opened fire on the onrushing alien force, setting his Energy Rifle to full automatic fire. Numerous energy bolts erupted from his weapon, cutting a swath of destruction as each bolt either killed of maimed an alien invader. Slowly, Hinawa turned away, as if she were resisting a magnetic pull to join Flint in the fighting, and she focused on getting her children out of danger. In the distance, she saw more humans in the streets, many of them armed with various weapons from old projectile guns to the newer and more advanced Energy Rifles. The other residents of Onett, those who had not evacuated or been killed in the fighting, were also under attack by the alien forces. There were already scorch marks in the street and on several houses, as well as several alien and human bodies lining the roads. This was all so familiar to Hinawa. Flint had explained it to her countless times after he had returned for a rare leave.

For the first year after World War Three, during the prelude invasion by the aliens, this had been how it was. Alien forces landed in the streets of the smaller cities of Earth, while their ships had bombarded the larger and/or more heavily populated cities from orbit. That was up until a week ago, when the real alien fleet had arrived at Earth. They had opened fire on the most heavily populated cities and obliterated them in one fell swoop. What was worse was the fact that the new invasion had elite psychic troopers called Starmen. Fortunately, no Starmen had appeared here, yet. The Mooks and other aliens that could use "elemental" energy attacks were powerful at close and medium range, but they were still killable by snipers and normal weapons. Their lack of any special defenses meant that they could be beaten by armed humans in one on one combat. The Starmen were different. They could be killed if they were caught off guard, but if they were on guard, a sniper's bullet would likely merely be reflected back at the sniper and kill him. Not only that, but the Starmen had psychic attacks that could level entire city blocks with ease. While it would eventually be possible to take down a Starman, the cost in both human equipment and human lives would be tremendous. And that was just for one Starman. Hinawa shook the thought of Starmen coming to attack, though. She could not afford to think about that right now. What she had to do was get through this battle down the street with both herself and her children alive. The exchange of gun and energy fire with the psychic powers of the Mooks and the magical powers of the elf and Faerie warriors convinced Hinawa to search for new shelter. It looked as if she would have no choice but to wait it out.

Back at Flint's house, he was running from the pursuing alien forces. He sprayed a few energy bolts back at the pursuers, managing to fell a Faerie and an elf in the process. As he rushed past the houses of the street, he heard the sounds of gunfire and energy fire erupting from several houses, as well as the flashes of energy and gunshots. He knew that not all of the families were emerging victorious as he heard a lot of shouting, both human and alien. Soon, Flint found an alley where he hoped that he could evade the others, or at least force them into an enclosed space where he could thin out their ranks. Unfortunately, the alley was a dead end. This was no good, so he ducked back into the main street, taking some more potshots at the alien forces, managing to fell a Mook Senior this time, and took off in the opposite direction. As he was running, his radio crackled, "Red Flight to Captain Flint Sanders, we are coming towards your location, what are your orders?"

Flint pulled out a smoke grenade and activated it. As he ran, red smoke now trailed him. "Target the red smoke," he ordered as he tossed the grenade back at the alien force. The grenade landed among the pursuing aliens and smoke covered them. He then fled the area as quickly as possible. The aliens, being disoriented by the smoke, stumbled forward hearing, but not seeing, the A-10 Warthogs coming in low and fast. The A-10s delivered their payloads right into the red smoke. The area of red smoke was quickly transformed into a sea of fire as the bombs detonated among the aliens, reducing them to dust. Not a single Mook, Faerie, elf, or other alien soldier survived the attack. Flint looked back and waved at the A-10s. They had originally been stationed at the Threed Air Base before its destruction. He then smiled, which was a rarity for him in the last three years. Despite the craft design being almost eighty years old, the A-10 was still the best close air support fighter in the world. Modified with modern technology, it was still unmatched in close air support. Its durability also meant that more of them survived their missions than other close air support craft. Flint then stopped musing and he went over to reunite with his wife and children. As he went over to Hinawa, he saw heard the loud roar of tank engines. He turned back and saw several tank columns and over a hundred of infantry troops coming towards him and his family. He immediately recognized them as forces from Fort Scamp in Fiveton. It appeared as if reinforcements had made it to Onett after all.

Flint waved at the coming troops. A squadron of soldiers then rushed over to meet him and his wife. The commander, a Hispanic male in his mid-thirties with black hair, who was a Major in the army, checked out Flint, Hinawa, and their twin children. "Are you all okay?" he asked quickly, concerned for their wellbeing.

Flint and his family nodded.

"Good," the Major responded. "We've gotta get your family out of here as fast as possible. We've got a medevac helicopter standing by behind us. It'll take you to Kansas. The PSI Aliens haven't bothered attacking Kansas yet, so you guys may be able to survive there for now."

Flint turned to Hinawa and said, "Go."

"Not without you," Hinawa countered forcefully, blinking back tears.

Flint shook his head. "I'm a soldier in the United States Air Force. I have a duty to perform." He went over and hugged his wife, and then knelt down to hug his kids. "Don't worry. I'll make it. I have something worth living for…you." With that, he kissed Hinawa and he then motioned for her to join the others in going to the medevac.

Hinawa hesitantly went over towards the helicopter, but as soon as she took one step towards the helicopter, a green energy bolt struck the rear rotors of the helicopter and blew off the rear half of the helicopter. The upper rotors still twirled as the pilot and co-pilot abandoned the now stranded helicopter. They were wise to do so, for a second energy bolt struck the helicopter in the cockpit just as they had cleared the area and annihilated the helicopter. Standing in the distance were a group of Roswell Grays, Omega Borgs, and a couple of Greater Mooks. The aliens rained fire down upon the human troops. Flint retreated with his family, returning fire in the process, while the Major and his troops returned fire against the alien forces. Four UFOs came to assist the alien ground troops and provided close air support for their forces. One of their energy bolts burned through the hull of a tank, destroying its cannon and cooking its ammunition. The tank erupted in a violent storm of flame and shrapnel. Several soldiers standing too close to the tank were hit by the shrapnel and either killed or wounded. Two other tanks then raised their main cannons, targeting the low-flying UFOs. The UFOs were too slow to rise and the tank drivers managed to get a good bead on the flying saucers. A resounding bang was heard for miles as the tanks fired on the alien craft. Flame erupted from their cannons as they fired 120mm shells at the alien craft. The hulls of the UFOs were no match for the shells of the tanks. With two shots, two UFOs had massive round holes blown into them. The UFOs then drifted down to the Earth, where the crashed and exploded as they struck the ground. The aliens' air support had been cut in half.

A third UFO was targeted by two troopers armed with shoulder-launched Stinger surface-to-air missiles. The two troopers targeted the UFO and fired. Their missiles rocketed away from their launchers and towards the saucers at blazing speeds. The UFO tried to rise in order to avoid the missiles, but it was to no avail. The missiles zeroed in on it and crashed into the craft. The first missile blew a small hole into the side of the craft as it crashed into the saucer and exploded. Still, it alone, though, would have been insufficient to take down the UFO. However, the second Stinger missile was there to finish the job. The second missile crashed into the same area of the UFO where the first missile had detonated. It exploded and expanded the hole that had already been blown into the craft. The extra damage was all that was necessary to take down the alien craft. The saucer listed to one side as it began to fall back to the Earth uncontrollably. The craft soon crashed an exploded. During the attack on the third UFO, an F-24 Wraith had arrived over the town and fired a single missile at the final saucer. The missile almost instantly struck the saucer in the cockpit, detonating upon impact, its explosion killing the pilot. The UFO then fell back to the ground where it crashed among the alien troops and exploded, sending debris flying everywhere. Several alien soldiers were killed by the shrapnel from the exploding UFO in the process.

Meanwhile, the Major and his forces were engaging the alien soldiers in a firefight. They currently had the upper hand. The Major fired on a Roswell Gray, his volley of bullets gouging several holes into the Roswell Gray. The alien fell backwards to the ground and did not rise again. The Omega Borgs were more difficult to take down, their armor all but impenetrable to normal bullets, but Flint's Energy Rifle was able to inflict sufficient damage to take down an Omega Borg with a few shots, as demonstrated when he took down an Omega Borg that had caught sight of Hinawa and their children. Flint quickly took aim at a second Omega Borg and opened fire again. The rapid fired energy bolts burned through the armor of the robot and felled the robot before it could take a shot at either him or his family, smoke rising from its deactivated carcass.

So far, the Major and his troops were holding their own against the alien forces, and were even beginning to push them back. Two Greater Mooks fell the withering fire from several soldiers, but not before the Mooks managed to get a good look at a few soldiers and used their gaze to diamondize them. So far, all things considered, things were looking pretty good. Several more Roswell Grays were felled, and most of the attacking Omega Borgs had reduced to scrap metal by either Flint's Energy Rifle, or the rocket-propelled grenade launchers that several of the troops had carried into battle. The alien forces also did not seem to be all that skilled as an army. They fired wildly at the human forces, who had taken cover around the corners of damaged buildings, the destroyed tank, or any number of other areas of cover. In addition, the air support provided by the human forces was also tearing into the reinforcements consisting of elves and Faeries that were coming to assist their Roswell Gray allies. However, things were about to change, drastically.

A flash of light issued forth between the two lines of enemy troops. Instantly, two Starmen appeared before the human forces. Starmen had been notorious for being incredibly difficult for the conventional forces of Earth's militaries to kill if they did not manage to get the drop on them. Some of the stronger human psychics could take a Starman, or disrupt him enough for the military forces to be able to kill him, but without the presence of psychics, most conventional forces stood little chance of defeating a Starman in direct combat without suffering insane casualties. As such, the Major and his forces wasted no time opening fire on the two Starmen before they could switch their psychic shield to a normal shield. The human forces managed to fell one of the Starmen before he was able to raise a normal shield over his body. The second one, however, had managed to raise a normal shield over his body, but not before he had been wounded by one of the Major's men. However, his wound was not enough to disrupt his concentration. He immediately called down a Starstorm Alpha barrage against the human forces. Green orbs of psychic energy rained down from the sky and landed among the forces of the human soldiers. No cover was sufficient to protect the humans as they fled from the assault, doing their best to avoid being struck down by the stars or being in their blast zone as they hit the ground and detonated like missiles. Two of the tanks in the Major's battalion were destroyed by the attack, and several other soldiers either suffered direct hits from the stars, or were caught in the blast radii of the stars. Still, the remaining tanks and soldiers opened fire on the Starman. His shield, while strong, was insufficient to withstand the withering fire from the human soldiers, and after a few seconds he, too, fell.

Immediately after the second Starman had been killed, a Starman wearing a golden uniform similar to the Starman's silver appeared on the scene. The Starman Super was prepared for battle, however, since when the military forces opened fire on him, their bullets and tank shells struck his shield, causing it to flare for an instant, and were immediately reflected back at the soldiers. Only the Type IV Body Armor worn by the soldiers kept the majority of the soldiers hit by their own weapons alive. However, they were still knocked to the ground, many of them suffering cracked ribs and other injuries in the process. The tanks fared a little worse, their reflected weapons inflicting significant damage to the tanks. Some were completely immobilized, their treads destroyed and guns shattered. Others merely suffered damage to their guns and were able to roll back in retreat to fight another day. The Starman Super looked around and laughed as the human soldiers wisely retreated from him. He did not care about their retreat, though, and he began to fire indiscriminately into the crowd of soldiers. Not taking care to aim, his beams of energy often only struck pavement and gouged massive holes into the street. Some, however, managed to strike a soldier and instantly blow the soldier apart.

After the Starman Super grew bored of firing on the soldiers, he shifted his gaze down at the fleeing Flint and Hinawa along with their children. He used his telekinesis to draw the family towards him. As they were being drawn to him, he returned his gaze onto the soldiers and opened fire on them once again. This time, he rained down lightning bolts onto the soldiers. As soon as the family had been drawn towards him, he grinned, something that could not be seen by the humans through his visor, and he said, "Your children are coming with me." Two Starmen then appeared at his side. They then grabbed Lucas and Claus from their parents. Flint and Hinawa tried to fight back, but were easily overpowered when the Starman Super struck them down with a single blast of lightning. The Starman Super then told his Starman cohorts, "Take the children to Master Giygas immediately. I'll be with you after I kill these two."

"Didn't Master Giygas order the parents of any known psychics to be taken as well?" one of the Starmen asked.

The Starman Super glared at him and snapped in reply, "No! He said for us to do our best to make sure that they were not killed, but if they provide a little too much difficulty, we can kill them. Well, these parents have given me some difficulty. So I'll…" but his sentence was cut off by a blast of PSI Thunder. He cried out as the psychic lightning instantly collapsed his shield and forced him back, lightning arcing across his body. The Starman Super landed a few feet away, but his attacker would not have to finish him off, for the military forces took advantage of his momentary vulnerability and opened fire on him with everything they had. The bullets and shells streaked at the Starman Super and before he could raise a shield to protect himself, he was shredded by gunfire. He writhed as he was struck repeatedly by the gunfire of the human soldiers. The tank shells that blew apart his corpse was merely icing on the cake. The two normal Starmen had fled the scene, getting as far away from their injured comrade as possible, knowing that they would have been caught in the attack themselves.

The Starmen turned and found three teens approaching. They instantly sensed that the teens were psychic. Given the power that was emanating from them, they figured that the teens were the psychic component of the Chosen Four that Master Giygas had warned them about. They knew that with the twins, though, that they had the advantage since Giygas's dossier on the Chosen Four indicated that their goal was to save lives, rather than take them. As such, the two Starmen held out the twins in an effort to dissuade Ness and the others from attacking. Unfortunately, they soon noticed that the older teen, Poo, was missing. They scanned the areas surrounding Ness and Paula for any sign of the missing psychic, but only learned his location when a single swing of his sword beheaded both of the Starmen. Ness telekinetically caught the children before they could fall out of the grasp of the Starmen. He then gently lowered them into their carriage. Once they were safely in their carriage, the teens went over to the twins' parents.

Once they arrived where the parents had been felled, Ness used PSI Healing Gamma to revive the parents, since they had not yet died of their injuries, despite being unconscious. When the parents were revived, they glanced around at the scene of devastation. Hinawa rocketed to her feet and cried out, "Lucas, Claus, where are they?"

"Right here," came the reply from Paula, who was pushing their carriage to Hinawa. Hinawa rushed over to her children and hugged them again. She was quickly joined by her husband, Flint. The scene warmed the hearts of Ness and the others.

"We can't thank you three enough," Flint and Hinawa told them. Flint gazed at the teens for a moment and then asked, "Sorry if I'm being too intrusive, but may I ask your names?"

Seeing no problem, Ness and the others volunteered their names, though they only gave their first names for the moment. When Poo gave his name, Flint's eyes went wide for a moment. He then asked the teen, "Are you friends with a boy named Jeff Andonuts?"

This got the attention of the others. "Yes," the party responded in unison. "Do you know where he is?" Ness asked as he rushed over to Flint.

Flint shook his head sadly. "No, not right now."

"When did you first meet him?" Paula asked.

"It was three years ago," Flint began. He then sat down on one of the benches near where they had been standing. "It was before the first invasion, just before World War Three ended. Jeff had arrived and helped us stop an assassination attempt on the world leaders that strived to end the war. In doing so, it was revealed that there were alien forces that were quite interested in the outcome of World War Three.

"After they were stopped, the aliens invaded for the first time. These weren't the psychic Starmen that attacked us, these were different. Some had special powers, but I don't know if they were psychic or not. Some looked like fairies from old stories and myths and legends, others looked like Tolkienesque elves, and others looked like Roswell Grays. We managed to beat back the invasion easily enough. The ironic thing was that they were foolish to attack when they did. We were about to dismantle all of our nukes at the end of the war, but the aliens attacked and we found that only our nuclear weapons were powerful enough to damage their capital ships in orbit. We used our ICBMs to destroy the first invading fleet, which was actually quite small. There were forces that had managed to land, though, and they wormed their way into a variety of criminal organizations and into some of the more corrupt Third World countries that had not joined the rest of the world in the peace treaty. They got some human servants and it took us a while to rout them. Eventually, we did. They officially surrendered to us about a week ago. And that's when the real enemy came.

"The Starmen, and their leader, Giygas, who refers to himself as a PSI Lord, or a PSI Alien as his human servants called him, attacked. Their first attack resulted in the destruction of Shanghai, Mumbai, Istanbul, Moscow and New York, with New York and Moscow in the process of being rebuilt due to the damage suffered in World War Three, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Mexico City, and Tokyo. Since the first attack, countless other cities have been destroyed or heavily damaged, including London, Paris, Berlin, Los Angeles, Cairo, and many others. And that's only counting the cities. Almost every major military base in the world has been destroyed or damaged by the aliens' attacks. Those that haven't been destroyed have been captured or are at the very least, contested. The death toll so far, not counting the already ludicrous casualties from World War Three, are in excess of one point eight billion. In total, we've lost about a third of the world's total population in the last thirteen years. And people are dying by the millions each day this war continues. While the military and political leaders don't want to admit it, if things go on as they have the past week, we could be looking at the extinction of humanity in less than a month. And the terrible thing is, that there is nothing we can really do about it. Our psychics can only slow down the advance on the ground and we've used most of our anti-orbital nuclear weapons against the second fleet already, those that weren't destroyed in the attacks or captured by the PSI Aliens. And now a much larger third fleet had come in to support the remnants of the second."

"Any idea why they're after human psychics?" Ness asked. He was hoping that they had a few ideas based upon the activities of the Starmen.

Flint shook his head. "No. I have no idea why they're not killing all of the human psychics, especially since shortly before their fleet had arrived, their primary goal was to kill every human psychic they came across. At the beginning of the conflict three years ago, there were a hundred known human psychics, both adult and child, though mostly children under the age of sixteen. Now, we only know of a dozen or so that are either alive or uncaught, not counting my twin children. And all of those are now serving in the military." Flint paused before continuing. "But I digress. You want to know about your friend." The others did not nod, but they did eagerly listen to what Flint was about to say. "About your friend, Jeff Andonuts, he was one of the first casualties of the war. He was frozen in a time dilation field here in Onett shortly after he had stopped the assassination attempt on the world leaders and helped bring everyone back together. The strange thing was that he was close to deactivating the device when it activated, so he should have only been there for a few weeks. When we went back to look for him the next day, the guards that were there to help him were dead and he had disappeared. It is likely that the Starmen captured him. Where he is, I don't know. The only known base they have is some mountain outside of the town of Ellay called Mount Itoi." That got the party's attention. "We have surmised that this is their primary base of operations, but we have no proof since this is the only known base we have seen. Anyway, we have launched several assaults on Mount Itoi, even nuclear assaults. All of them have been repulsed by the Starmen and their master, Giygas."

The party scowled at the mention of his name. This did not escape Flint's notice. "I take it you've heard of him."

"We fought him," Ness told him. "Unfortunately, when we fought him he won. We also had a lot of help and we were still lucky to escape that fight alive."

"But you won't be so fortunate now," a voice said from above. Floating above the party was a Starman Deluxe, flanked by four Starman Supers. Above the Starman Deluxe was the party's nemesis himself, Giygas. The Starman Deluxe looked up at his master and asked, "Do you wish for me to kill them, Master?"

Giygas responded, "Do what you wish with Ness, Paula Polestar, and Prince Poo of Dalaam. If you wish to have them meet their families in death, then do so." Ness and Paula became crestfallen at the statement that their family had died. Poo was still skeptical, though. Giygas then continued, "However, you are not to kill Flint and his family, particularly the twins and their mother. I have a use for them on Mount Itoi." That last bit was not subtle at all, and it confirmed Flint's suspicions, as well as those of the party, that Mount Itoi was the base of operations for Giygas and his minions.

"Understood, Master," replied the Starman Deluxe, bowing.

Turning towards Ness and his party, he called over to his minions, "You heard Master Giygas. Take them!"

Immediately, the Starman Supers targeted Ness and his friends and unleashed several volleys of PSI Thunder at its Gamma level. As such, they were not as strong as a PSI Thunder volley from Paula or Poo would have been, relatively speaking, but the blasts were still quite powerful. And since PSI Thunder could collapse any shields or counters that could be raised by the party, the only defense that Paula and Poo could mount was a direct battle using PSI Thunder. They both fired it at its Gamma level at first, the lightning bolts intercepting the Starman Supers' lightning and pushing against it. Unfortunately, the Starman Supers pushed back and soon, their power was overwhelming the heroes. Ness saw that his friends were losing ground and immediately went over to assist them. Poo increased his level of PSI Thunder to Omega and pushed back against the lightning storm in the sky. Paula did the same, but despite the additional energy, they party was outnumbered, and outgunned. The lightning came down towards the party and would strike with catastrophic consequences if left unchecked. To make matters worse, the lightning now split into two massive bolts, one headed for Paula, the other for Poo; all the while, the Starman Deluxe merely stood there, watching. Fortunately, Ness arrived, but he could only manage to block the lightning that was headed for one of them at a time. In an instant, his body moved to protect Paula from the vicious blast of lightning coming at her. Paula cut off her attack and Ness stepped in between the lightning attack and waited.

The lightning bore down on him and struck him. A loud metallic clang sounded as the lightning struck Ness, a telltale sign of Ness's Franklin Badge protecting him from the lightning. Not only did it protect Ness, though, it also reflected the lightning back at the Starman Supers. The lightning bore down on two Starman Supers and struck them, electrocuting them. The Starman Supers writhed in agony for the few seconds that they had to live before being reduced to dust by their own reflected attack. That was the good news for Ness and his party. The bad news was that Poo had not been able to hold out against the assault of the other two Starman Supers. Their lightning attacks had overpowered his own and had struck him. He now lay on the ground unconscious, electricity still sparking around his body. Ness and Paula went over to help their friend, but the Starman Deluxe and his two surviving Starman Super cohorts barred their way. Now, it was three on two. Ness and Paula both glanced around to see where Giygas was, hoping that he would not sneak attack them. Giygas, however, had other business to attend to.

During the fighting, Giygas had zeroed in on Hinawa and her two children. While he had not sensed any psychic powers emanating from Hinawa, the infant twins were practically bursting with psychic energy. They were by far the strongest in terms of potential that he had felt recently. Only the six year-old Kumatora seemed to be their equal. This was not counting Ness and his friends or Maria, though. He appeared in front of Flint and Hinawa and merely stood there, barring their way. The parents of the twins responded by pulling out their guns and firing on Giygas, knowing that it would do little good, but praying that they might get lucky. Unfortunately, their attempts to kill Giygas failed. The bullets bounced off of a shield that he had erected over himself. He then telekinetically grabbed their guns and pulled them out of their hands. He caught the guns in midair and with a single squeeze, crushed them. Giygas then proceeded to fire a lightning attack at both parents. They gave short cries as the lightning struck them and they fell to the ground. Their chests continued to rise and fall, though, a clear sign that they were still alive. Giygas did not want them dead, yet. He needed to study them, especially since neither of them possessed any psychic powers to speak of, and yet both of their children manifested incredible psychic potential. With the parents unconscious, he headed over to the few month old twins. He scooped them into his arms. He then gave a psychic call and two Starmen appeared in front of him, their silver uniforms shining in the sunlight. He motioned for them to grab the parents of the children. They did so, lifting the humans into their arms. After they had grabbed hold of the humans, they disappeared. Giygas then took one last look back at Ness and his friends, who were still battling the Starman Deluxe and his cohorts, and, frowning, disappeared from the scene.

Meanwhile, Ness and Paula were battling it out with the Starman Deluxe and his two remaining Starman Super cohorts. Since Paula was running low on psychic energy, and she was the only one who knew how to use PSI Thunder, Ness took action by tossing a bomb at the Starman Deluxe and his cohorts. Unfortunately, the Starman Deluxe was ready for this and he caught the explosive in midair and redirected it back at Ness. Ness was forced to use his own telekinetic abilities to stop the bomb. He then pushed back against the Starman Deluxe and the bomb rocketed back at him. However, he was soon supported by his Starman Super cohorts, and the bomb froze in midair once more. It soon exploded, showering the area with shrapnel. Despite the bomb not managing to hurt the Starmen, Paula had managed to use PSI Magnet Omega on the Starmen and she managed to drain some psychic energy from the Starmen. Still, they had a lot of psychic reserves. As such, this battle was far from over. However, her draining of the Starman Deluxe did do one thing, it managed to recharge her own reserves of psychic energy. Paula then raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party as Ness went to revive Poo using PSI Healing Omega, just in case Poo was worse off than he seemed. Poo immediately revived and was ready to add his might back to the battle. Still, he was in the same predicament as Paula. He only had a little psychic energy left due to the battles they had fought earlier. Still, he had enough to launch a volley of PSI Thunder. He unleashed the Thunder upon the Starman Deluxe, and only the Starman Deluxe. He was hoping that he could catch the Starman Deluxe off guard, since he had a feeling that the Starman Deluxe they were facing at the moment was significantly stronger than the Starman Deluxes that they had been used to facing earlier.

Indeed, the Starman Deluxe was stronger than the Starman Deluxes of the previous generation. This particular Starman Deluxe was also eager to show just how much the Deluxe line of Starman had improved. He stuck out his hand and caught Poo's PSI Thunder and simply stood there. Poo could not believe what the Starman Deluxe was doing. He was absorbing the attack and using its energy to increase his own supply of psychic energy. The Starman Deluxe grinned and he went to launch an attack at the party. However, he had focused so much on Poo's attack that he had not noticed Ness power a PSI Rockin Gamma and unleash it at him. Fortunately, the Starman Supers had noticed the attack and appeared directly in front of the Starman Deluxe, shielding him from the attack. However, Paula and Poo were ready for this and immediately upon seeing the Starman Supers step out in front of the Starman Deluxe, they used the last remains of their psychic energy to fire off a volley of PSI Thunder Omega.

The psychic lightning streaked towards the Starman Supers. Knowing the power of the attack, the Starman fired their own barrages of PSI Thunder, but only managed to power it to its Beta level before their lightning was met by Paula and Poo's. Even at the Gamma level, though, their lightning would not have matched the humans'. However, at the Beta level, it was not even able to slow down the attack. Paula and Poo's attacks plowed through the lightning defense that the Starman Supers had erected and it struck them directly, instantly collapsing their psychic counter shields and inflicting fatal damage to the two Starmen. The lightning bolts burned large holes into the chests of the Starman Supers and the Starman Supers fell back down to the Earth, smoke trailing their charred bodies.

Meanwhile, Ness had unleashed his PSI Rockin Gamma upon the Starman Deluxe. The Starman Deluxe raised his left hand and braced himself against Ness's attack. The scarlet ball of energy struck the Starman Deluxe and detonated, engulfing him in a globe of scarlet psychic energy. The teens watched as the globe of psychic energy continued to engulf the Starman Deluxe. Eventually, the globe of psychic energy dissipated, but much to their surprise, the Starman Deluxe remained. His body was smoking and covered in burn marks and he was breathing heavily, but he was alive. The Starman Deluxe breathed heavily as he said, "You fools. You should have known that I would be strong against psychic attacks and that I'd at least manage to raise a psychic shield over myself before your attack hit. You should have used your attack at its Omega level. There is a chance that you may have been able to defeat me if you used it at that level." The Starman Deluxe paused for a moment as he chuckled. "But you didn't. And that's going to cost you."

The visor of the Starman Deluxe stared to glow and soon, several dozen Starmen of all types surrounded the Starman Deluxe, and more than a dozen of them were Starman Supers. Ness and the others took a few steps backwards. Soon, a UFO appeared overhead, the distinctive hum of its engines echoing throughout the street. These were larger than the normal Fighter UFOs that were engaging the forces of the USAF. It was soon followed by an escort of two Fighter UFOs and dozens of smaller UFOs. The Starman Deluxe had summoned an entire army to the scene. The party saw the army arrayed against them and knew that in their current condition that they would not be able to defeat all of them. The teens then retreated and tried to flee so that they could come up with a new strategy, only to meet another force of aliens. These consisted of Mooks of various types, Omega Borgs, and some pink suits of armor that looked to be feminine in design. Their designs reminded Ness of Juanas.

"Surrender now, and your lives will be spared," the Starman Deluxe offered, calling down to the party. Still, he was on his guard, as were the others. Even in their current condition, he knew that Ness and the others were not easy targets. With the proper items, they could fight their way free. Ness pulled out a Mega Double Burger Meal and prepared to eat it to give him some strength in order to fight the alien army. The Starman Deluxe nixed that with a single beam to the sandwich, vaporizing it. He would not let Ness refuel himself, or anyone else for that matter. Things looked bleak for Ness and the others. "Well?" he called down, growing impatient with their lack of an answer. "What is your answer?"

Ness was about to talk strategy with the team when Paula broke the silence. "We surrender," she called back to them.

"What?" Ness gasped, unable to hide his shock and rage at Paula seeming cowardice. Upon thinking for a second, he realized that she had to be planning something. Paula was no coward. "What are you thinking?"

"Trust me," Paula assured him, winking. "It's better this way."

Poo began to see what Paula was planning and added, "She's right. In our current situation, we won't be able to win. But if we go along with them, we might be able to do something about their invasion plans. We might learn more about the fleet, about what new soldiers they have, and other things. It's better than fighting a battle we've already lost."

Their arguments made sense. This was a good chance to find out more about what was going on. Not only that, it was also a good opportunity to try to find out about Jeff's fate, as well as the fate of their families. Ness was beginning to wonder if Giygas was telling the truth about the fates of their families. Ness then relented and stepped forward. "On behalf of my party, I surrender," he called out with difficulty.

"I accept," the Starman Deluxe responded. If the humans could see the face underneath the mask, they would have known that the Starman Deluxe was grinning. He then turned to the Starman Supers and told them, "Take hold of their weapons and bags. Then take them to Stonehenge Base in Winters. Make sure to keep them restrained as well. We don't want them breaking out."

"Understood, sir," one of the Starman Supers responded. The army of Starmen then surrounded the party and restrained them, forcing them to the ground. The Starman Super that was designated the Chief Warden of the trio of prisoners took hold of the weapons of the party, as well as their backpacks and items. He gave their weapons and items to other guards and told them, "Keep these weapons safe. There is something special about them, especially that one," he pointed at the sword. "I want to study them when we get to Stonehenge Base,"

The other Starmen saluted. Ness and the others, however, managed to catch their little exchange. That was another useful bit of information. The Starmen were using bases that they had already previously established for this invasion. Perhaps they only had a couple of major bases rather than the many that Ness and the others had initially feared. The Starman Super then came around and fired pink halos of energy at each of the teens. The halos of energy bound their arms and surrounded their bodies. The larger Transport UFO soon came down towards the ground and hovered over the group. Not long after it arrived, the bottom of the craft opened and the teens were drawn aboard, along with the Chief Warden Starman Super and a dozen guards, some of who carried the weapons and items of the party. Ness grinned. The Starmen were overconfident. He was not worried at all. He could play the captive until they reached Stonehenge Base. He glanced over at Paula and winked at her. Her plan was looking better and better. Not only did they have a chance to learn more about what Giygas's plans were, but they could also inflict a lot of damage to those plans soon. They merely had to be patient. The bottom of the UFO closed and the UFO then rocketed away, with two Fighter UFOs as its escort. The group was then given a view to Onett as the residential areas as the Starman Deluxe used PSI Starstorm Omega to level the town. Ness blinked back tears and rage as green orbs of psychic energy rained down from the sky and struck the town, each star leveling entire city blocks upon impact. Dozens of stars rained down upon the town, both in the urban as well as in the residential areas. He could see the human military forces fleeing the town at the outskirts. He could only hope that the majority of troops managed to make it out. He knew, though, that many would not. The Starmen were ruthless and they would do their best to hunt down any survivors. He would make the Starmen, and Giygas, pay for the destruction of his hometown, and for the deaths of those who were not fortunate enough to escape Onett before its destruction.

After Onett's destruction, the Starman Deluxe watched as the remaining military forces that had entered Onett fled the town. He looked out to the UFO and for a fleeting moment wondered if Ness's surrender had been sincere. After all, Ness had been pretty quick to surrender when he saw that his psychic attack was not able to kill the Starman Deluxe. He shook off the feeling, though. They were already low on psychic energy. There was nothing they could do to the Starmen onboard the Transport UFO. Knowing that they would not escape, he teleported out of the ruined Onett, his destination, Mount Itoi, and Giygas.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

The Transport UFO flew straight towards Stonehenge Base in Winters at its best atmospheric speed. The Starmen crewing the ship did not take the time to enjoy the few remaining beautiful landscapes below as they flew over. They did not care about such things. The Starmen that were assigned to care for the weapons of Ness's party had stowed the weapons into various lockers on the transport. The control center took up much of the craft's interior, with confinement cells taking up most of the rest. The interior was gray, with lines of green lights flashing on and off. Some lights lit up in a line, traveling along a path. From three separate cells at the rear of the craft, Ness and his friends watched the actions of the Starmen in close detail. The pilots of the craft were normal Starmen, though Ness and the others figured that "normal" here was what they had fought earlier. The Starmen, even the Starman Super warden, did not keep a close eye on the three prisoners. Their cells were enclosed by energy bars that would disintegrate anyone who touched them, as a fourth prisoner had learned the hard way as he tried to take the jolt. Apparently, the bars could be set for stun, or instant annihilation. The Starmen seemed to be making a sport of turning the bar settings down until a prisoner was confident that he or she could take the jolt of pain and charge through. It was then that they set the bars up to their maximum setting and let the hapless prisoner get him or herself killed. Poo had easily been able to sense the change in the strength of the bars. So far, the trio of human psychics merely watched, and waited.

One of the Starmen looked back at the humans for a bit. He noticed that they were focusing on the Starman crew and guards. The Starman shivered. "Man, those kids give me the creeps," he said quietly, though not quietly enough for his cohort next to him not to hear his remark. His cohort gave a chuckle at the statement.

"Why? What's so _creepy_ about them?" his cohort asked derisively, raising his arms as if he were a ghost come to haunt his friend.

"Look at them," the other said, turning his cohort's head back towards the humans.

The other Starman focused his gaze on the children, one after the other. He noticed that they were all silent. However, they were not crying or in the throes of despair. No fear showed on any of their faces, just the opposite. He saw that they were quite serious, but also confident about something. The Starman shook off the feeling that they were planning something. Those cages could not be escaped at all. They were made to be able to restrain a Final Starman. There was no way some silly human psychic would be able to break free.

From inside his cell, Ness watched the Starmen. He began look around the area and prepared to make a move when Paula's voice rang throughout his head. _No, not yet. We have to let them take us to Winters first._ Ness was about to argue the point with a thought that he knew Paula would pick up, but she soon added, _Besides, none of us can fly one of these things. We'll have to break out when they land_.

_But by then, they'll likely have more security coming_, Poo countered telepathically, which Paula relayed to Ness. All of their minds were open so, through Paula's telepathy, they could hear each other's thoughts.

_I agree with Poo_, Ness told Paula._ This is getting pretty risky. It's one thing to let ourselves be captured so we can rest and replenish our psychic energy, but it's another thing to let them take us to one of their main bases where they'll have a lot more Starmen and other aliens waiting. They have to know we've gone through Stonehenge Base before. They'll be ready for us._

After a long pause, Paula looked down glumly. _I know_, she told them. _Still, it does not negate the point that we can't fly this thing. We'll have to wait until they land, or are about to land. That is when we will strike_. One thing that they could all agree on was that when they struck, they would have to do so quickly. If the Starmen managed to warn the base about Ness and his party, then they would be able to mount a more effective defense against them, and that was something that Ness and the others wanted to avoid.

The UFO continued on its journey for Stonehenge Base in Winters for over two hours. After two hours, the Starmen could sense that they were getting close. It would only be another ten minutes before they got to their final destination. Despite Winters being the home city of Jeff, or at least his current place of residence, it had not been hit as hard by the initial assault of the PSI Aliens as the other hometowns of the Chosen Four and the cities that surrounded them. That is not to say that it had managed to escape the war unscathed, though. Winters had suffered some severe damage, but it was nothing compared to what Twoson or even Onett had suffered in the recent assault.

The Transport UFO flew straight over the wintry landscape flying straight for Stonehenge Base. It did not take long for them to sight the familiar ring of stones that was the landmark of the area. Onboard the UFO, the chief warden of the prisoners Starman Super told the pilots of the UFO, "Land just outside of the main ring of stones. We'll need to get the human psychics into the tubes as quickly as possible."

"Understood, sir," the Starman piloting the UFO responded.

"Inform me when we are about to land."

The Starman saluted and then focused his attention back on piloting the craft.

Ness and the others listened carefully to the conversation. Despite the fact that the Starmen were psychic, they had not seemed to notice Paula's telepathic eavesdropping. The teens nodded and formulated their plan. Their time to strike would be when the guards came to open the cell to one of their cages.

The Starman shrugged as he turned to face the rear of the craft, and the holding cages that housed the human psychics. Despite the confidence, he would say arrogance, that some of his Starman demonstrated towards the human children, he knew better. He could tell that the human psychics had been off during their battle against the Starman Deluxe and his forces. It was almost as if they were conserving their energy. Chances were that if they were restored to full strength, that they would be very difficult to defeat in battle. Of course, he hoped that it would not be necessary to fight them.

"Sir, we are about to begin landing procedures," the Starman piloting the UFO called over to the Starman Super.

"Thank you, Starman One-One-Beta." The Starman Super then turned towards the rear and ushered two Starmen that were standing guard on the craft to follow him back towards the teens. He went over to the cage of the younger boy, Ness. One of the guards then stepped forward and produced a key. The Starman stuck it into the keyhole and waited for the energy bars to lower. Once the energy bars lowered, Ness made his move. Knowing that the Starman had a psychic shield as an automatic defense, Ness pushed more energy than he normally would have into his telekinetic push. Shoving his hand outward, he unleashed an incredible wave of telekinetic energy that disturbed the air enough that it was visible. The Starman took the full force of the attack and despite having his psychic shield up it was unable to absorb the full force of Ness's attack. Some of the energy bled through the shield and the Starman went flying backwards. Ness had directed his flight so that he would be collide with the Starman Super, who was protected by a psychic counter shield, and thus would be a dangerous opponent for Ness to attack head on right now. Using his telekinesis, he destroyed the control consoles to the other cages, which resulted in the lowering of the energy bars that incarcerated Paula and Poo. Sparks erupted from the other control consoles, as did metallic debris when Ness destroyed them. Both of the human teens burst forth from their cages and into the fray. Both opened with a volley of PSI Thunder at the Gamma level in order to conserve their psychic energy. They directed the PSI Thunder at the Starman Super, who was protected by his psychic counter shield and had risen to face Ness. The counter shield was useless against the psychic lightning that Paula and Poo unleashed against him. The lightning phased through the shield and struck the unfortunate Starman directly in the chest. Lightning arced across his body as the Starman fell to the ground, writhing in agony. A subsequent blast of PSI Thunder ended his threat permanently.

Meanwhile, Ness took advantage of Paula and Poo engaging the Starman Super to deal with the other Starmen. He saw the Starman that he had hurled into the Starman Super begin to rise and he readied a blast of PSI Rockin at its Beta level. Ness powered a scarlet ball of energy in his right hand and fired it towards the hapless Starman. The ball rocketed towards the psychic alien and struck him in the center of his chest. The explosion of energy engulfed the Starman and proceeded to vaporize him. By the time the globe of energy dissipated, there was nothing except vapor and steam. Ness then focused his attention on the other Starmen who were rapidly leaving their stations and charging towards the heroes. Ness powered a pulsing globe of PSI Flash Omega and hurled it at three of the charging Starmen. The pulsating globe of energy reached the Starmen and exploded. Their psychic shields were not designed to protect them from an attack like PSI Flash, which inflicted a variety of random effects on the target. One of the Starman was instantly killed by the explosion of Flash. The second began to cry uncontrollably, though that did not matter much since he could still sense Ness and attack him using his psychic powers. A third was frozen in his tracks by the explosion, paralyzed. Like his crying companion, he too was still able to unleash psychic attacks. Ness frowned. He was hoping for his Flash to be more effective. He then remembered that the Starmen from his previous adventure were quite strong against Flash. He now felt that he was was fortunate that somehow, Flash had managed to affect three Starmen, with one of them being killed outright by the attack. He then used his telekinesis to break the necks and backs of the two Starmen that were still alive from the force that he had engaged, just to make sure that their threats were permanently neutralized. The sickening crack of bones echoed throughout the ship as the heads of the Starmen spun around 360 degrees. The two Starmen then fell to the floor, dead.

Meanwhile Paula and Poo were dealing with the other charging Starmen. Wanting to conserve their psychic energy, but also neutralize the threat posed by the Starmen, they unleashed streams of PSI Thunder at its Gamma level at the Starmen, knowing that the Gamma level would be sufficient to take down the Starmen. The Starmen were hit with the Thunder and were quickly felled, their defenses insufficient to stop Paula and Poo's attack. Ness and the others then turned their attention to the pilot and copilot as the ship landed. The two turned back and noticed that Ness and his friends had managed to escape. They quickly tried to attack unleashing blasts of PSI Thunder at the psychics. The first volley of lightning missed the humans entirely as they had been moving to avoid the initial strike of the Starmen when the aliens had risen. Using his quick thinking, Ness used his telekinesis to pull the Starmen forward and restrain them while Paula and Poo shot them with repeated blasts of PSI Thunder. The aliens writhed as they were repeatedly struck by lightning. Eventually, their bodies were nothing more than charred wrecks of organic debris and whatever alien material their suits were made out of.

After the pilot and copilot had fallen, Ness and the others looked around at the scene before them. Thirteen Starmen lay on the floor, dead. The teens did not stop to gloat and admire their handiwork. They had a mission to perform. They quickly rummaged around the ship, searching for their weapons and items. After a bit of searching, Poo found his weapons and items in a cargo compartment not far from the energy cages. Not long after, Ness and Paula found their own weapons and items lying undisturbed in a cargo pod. After claiming their weapons, the teens went over to the main control station to try to figure out how to lower the boarding ramp so they could get off the ship. After searching for a few minutes, Ness figured that the search was going nowhere fast. Deciphering alien technology was Jeff's department and he was not there. Soon, Ness's patience wore thin and he powered a blast of PSI Rockin and, telling his friends, "I'd raise a Shield Sigma if I were you, just in case," he pointed his psychic energy ball towards some random wall and let fly with his attack. The scarlet ball of energy struck the wall and bored through before exploding into a massive sphere of energy. The sphere remained for a few seconds before it dissipated. Upon dissipating, Ness saw the frozen rock face of a cliff in the distance. His attack had blown a massive hole into the ship, allowing them to disembark. He went over to the hole and looked down, seeing the frozen ground beneath the craft.

Ness exited the ship first. He jumped down from the floor, which was twelve feet off the ground, using his telekinetic abilities to land softly. He was followed by Paula. He eased her landing with his psychic abilities. When she landed softly on her two feet, she beamed over at him. Ness beamed a smile back at her. Neither of the younger psychics noticed Poo's landing until they turned and saw him looking over at them. The group turned around and saw that the clifface opened into a larger frozen area surrounded by rock walls on three sides. In the middle of this area was a formation of stones. The formation of stones looked very similar to the Stonehenge monument in England. Jeff had told him that the Stonehenge stone formation in Winters had been a school project by the students of the Snow Wood Boarding School a number of years ago. He had been here only once before, when they initially went to Stonehenge Base to rescue Dr. Andonuts and others that had been captured by Giygas's forces three years ago. However, the stone formation was not what Ness and the others were interested in. It was the facility underneath Stonehenge that interested them. The group made its way into the formation of stones. As they arrived, two grayish Grizzly Bears that had been augmented by the PSI Aliens and that Ness had known as Mighty Bear Sevens charged the group. Not wanting to engage them in a fight, Ness shoved a wave of telekinetic energy at the onrushing bears. The wave hit the charging bears and sent them flying backwards clear of the stone formation. Ness and the others did not bother to see where the bears had landed. Upon landing, the bears quickly realized that Ness was dangerous so they fled the area, not wanting to continue their battle against him.

With the bears dealt with, Ness and the others went to the center of the stone formation. In the center of the formation was a hole with the top of a ladder sticking out of it. This was the way into the subterranean Stonehenge Base. Before entering, though, the group stopped to replenish their strength. Ness pulled out his last Mega Double Burger Meal and ate. The meal replenished his physical energy as well as some of his psychic energy. Still, he knew that he would be relying on close range combat in the upcoming dungeon, since his PSI Rockin was dangerous to use in an enclosed space like Stonehenge Base. Poo also got out some items as well. He handed Paula a Bottle of DX Water for her to drink. It was a special type of water from Dalaam that could help replenish psychic energy. Paula drained the bottle quickly and felt her psychic strength return. Poo then drank his remaining Bottle of DX Water to replenish some of his own psychic strength. He knew that they would be able to restore the rest should they engage any Starmen in the base, assuming the Starmen were put to sleep by Ness. Ness and the others then checked their inventories. Without Jeff to help them, they would have to rely on the items they carried for non-psychic attacks at mid to long range. After they were content that they had enough ordnance to make it through the base should worst come to worst, they focused on the base. After they had prepared themselves for the journey ahead, they proceeded to make their way into Stonehenge Base. Ness was the first to climb down the ladder. He was then followed by Paula, with Poo bringing up the rear.

Inside the base, the trio followed the ladder until it ended at the floor of a cave. Upon stepping off the ladder, they scanned the area to see if there were any enemies present. Nothing was visible, but Ness did not want to take any chances. He glanced over at Paula, which was his signal for her to begin telepathically scanning their surroundings. After a few moments, Paula shook her head, giving the "all clear" sign. They then went over to the door that led into the base, itself. Ness was the first to enter, followed by Paula, and finally Poo.

The party emerged into a long hallway that was lined with a soft purple floor, and had walls with sparkling lights that simulated the night sky. The party stopped for a second to see if there was anything in the hallway. Paula telepathically communicated with the rest of the party, saying, _I sense several enemies present inside this section of the base. Most of them are Starmen, though the Starmen are making mention of Nuclear Reactor Robots as well._

Once Paula was finished speaking to them telepathically, Ness nodded, acknowledging that he had received her communiqué. Poo also gave a nod and he drew out his katana. Ness also drew out his Legendary Bat and led the way, followed by Paula, with Poo being rearguard. The trio made their way down the long hallway prepared for combat, so they were actually surprised when no one came out to challenge them. Paula extended her telepathic senses again to see if there were enemies present. Indeed, there were a large group of enemies ahead of her, but they seemed not to have noticed the arrival of any intruders. Paula figured that if they were lucky, they could take out a large group of enemies from long range without having to worry about the explosions caused by the Nuclear Reactor Robots. Poo also extended his own psychic senses, scanning for any energy signatures that might be concealing themselves from Paula's telepathic senses. He sensed nothing different from what she had described to him and Ness.

The teens continued down the corridor until it came to a dead end. The path then went to the right. Before turning the corner, Paula sent a telepathic warning to Ness, causing him to come to a stop. _There's one Nuclear Reactor Robot and four Starmen around that corner_, she informed them. Knowing exactly what to do, Ness drew out one of his Super Bombs and, pushing its activation stud, proceeded to toss it down the next corridor. The Starmen in the corridor did not notice the bomb until it rolled into one of them after taking a few bounces. The clueless Starman looked down at the spherical device and bent down to pick it up just as it exploded, reducing the Starman's face to a fine mist. The explosion had also sent the other Starmen flying into the walls, where they impacted with the wall, leaving an imprint, and falling to the floor. That was not the worst of it, though. The worst came when the Nuclear Reactor Robot, having suffered catastrophic damage, activated its self-destruct sequence. Ness and the others ducked well back into the other corridor as the Nuclear Reactor Robot exploded. The remaining Starmen were incinerated by the robot's detonation. Flames shot all throughout the corridor, and even extended down the corridor that Ness had been standing in. The party had fortunately backed away far enough so that they were not caught in the flames that had spread due to the robot's detonation. Once the explosion had finished, Ness and the others retraced their steps back down to the end of the current section of the corridor and took a right to follow the corridor further.

Down the new corridor, they saw that the tunnel had collapsed. He shrugged and used his telekinetic abilities to clear a path for them to walk through. Buried beneath the rubble were the remains of three other Starman, along with shrapnel that Ness suspected had belonged to the Nuclear Reactor Robot. Ness was glad that he had not been anywhere near the vicinity of the robot when it had exploded. The group continued down the corridor and also found the remains of a Mook Senior and a Greater Mook as well. It was a two for one deal in Ness's eyes. It was not long before they came to a doorway that led deeper into the base. Paula stepped out in front of the party and her eyes began to glow for a second. After that second, they returned to normal, or as normal as they could be when they were wide with surprise, and not a small amount of fear.

"There's so many of them," she audibly said, in awe.

"So many of what?" Ness asked. He felt as if he already knew the answer, but he was hoping that Paula was not referring to what was likely a small army in the next area.

"Starmen," she responded. "The whole base is crawling with them. And there appears to be new varieties of them as well," she added. "I clearly made out the terms 'Starman Warrior' and 'Soldier Starman'. I don't know for sure what that means, but I don't like it."

Poo did not like it either. He and Ness figured that they were Starmen that were either strong in physical combat, as well as in their psychic prowess and/or using technological weapons for dealing with opponents that used psychic shielding.

"Can we take them?" Ness asked. He wanted to hear Paula's opinion of the situation.

Paula considered Ness's question for a moment. Eventually, she answered, "Yes," in an uncertain voice, "but we would likely be using up a lot of our current arsenal to beat them. But we won't reach that main force until we reach some relatively open ground about fifty yards away."

"And is the corridor leading to that open space guarded by Starmen?"

Paula nodded. "The Starmen are a distance from the door, though. It would be best if Poo or I went in first."

"Then by all means…" Ness said, standing aside for Paula and motioning for her to go through and bowing.

Paula gave a playful smile as she stepped forward. Paula went through the door and on the other side, she found herself face to face with two Starmen. She immediately raised a PSI Shield Beta over herself and prayed that they were not smart enough to use PSI Thunder on her. Her prayers were answered to her satisfaction, for both Starmen started by powering snowflakes of psychic energy over their heads, a clear sign that they were using PSI Freeze. Instead of attacking directly at the moment, Paula used PSI Magnet Omega on the Starmen as she drew out her Non-Stick Fry Pan and rushed towards the Starmen. She drained psychic energy from the Starmen and added it to her own reserves, which were still nowhere close to full. The bit that she had managed to drain from them replenished the energy she had expended by the use of her PSI Shield Beta, and even added some more energy to her reserves. The Starmen soon unleashed their PSI Freeze attacks on Paula. The snowflakes of psychic energy streaked toward Paula. She did not even try to dodge the psychic attacks, letting them strike her psychic counter shield. The blasts of icy psychic energy struck her shield, causing it to flare for an instant, before reflecting the attacks back at the two Starmen. The Starmen were astounded when their attacks were reflected back at them. Paula figured that they must not have had experience fighting human psychics before. The snowflakes of psychic energy reached the stunned aliens and exploded, encasing them in blocks of ice, where they would remain, not yet dead, but also no longer threats for the time being. Paula took this opportunity to psychically call in Ness and Poo. The two boys entered the room and, upon noticing the frozen Starmen, went over to finish them off. Paula stopped them, crying, "No. Not yet."

Ness and Poo wondered what Paula meant, but soon learned when she used PSI Magnet Omega on the Starmen again. Poo could sense Paula's psychic energy replenishing with each use of the technique. Poo then joined Paula in leeching the psychic energy from the incapacitated Starmen. It took over a minute for Paula and Poo to drain the Starmen dry of their psychic energy. When they were finished, they moved on ahead, motioning for Ness to join them. He said he would catch up to them in a moment. When they were far enough ahead, he took out his baseball bat and shattered the Starmen. He knew that Paula would not have approved, but this was a time of war, and the Starmen were dangerous enemies. He also had a feeling that the Starmen may have also known PSI Magnet, so he neutralized their threat now, before they would become a threat once more later down the road. Most important in Ness's decision was due to the fact that the teens were likely going to be facing an army in the near future. Ness did not want these Starmen breaking free of the ice and attacking them from behind. He then caught up with the rest of the party.

The psychics continued on their way through the base, and eventually came to the corner that led to the open area where Paula had sensed a small army of Starmen gathering, along with other aliens. Ness peered around the corner and his eyes went wide with shock. Paula was not kidding. If anything, she had understated the amount of enemies that they were going to face there. Not only that, but a few new aliens seemed to have joined the party. Ness noticed a couple Roswell Grays, Faeries, Mook Seniors, Greater Mooks, and Nuclear Reactor Robots present as well. Fortunately, he did not notice any Starman Supers present. That meant that a single strong psychic attack could do a number on these aliens and they would not have to worry about it getting reflected back at them. Ness ducked back around the corner and went over the battle plan with his teammates.

"Okay, here's the plan," he began. "I'll go in and use my PSI Rockin against them in the opening part of the battle. There should be enough space for me to control it without causing a cave in. Since there aren't any Starman Supers present, there shouldn't be any risk of my attack being reflected. That also means that you won't be restricted to using PSI Thunder in the upcoming battle, so don't worry about holding back."

"Right," Paula and Poo replied simultaneously.

Ness then proceeded to power a ball of PSI Rockin in his right hand and he emerged from the corner and unleashed the ball of psychic energy at the arrayed enemy force. The ball of Rockin leapt from his hand and rocketed towards the enemy at blinding speed. Before any of the aliens could react the ball struck the ground among them and detonated, engulfing the vast majority of the alien party in a red globe of energy. Ness knew that many of the enemies would be annihilated by the globe of psychic energy since he had powered it to its Gamma level. Several explosions rang out from inside the field of energy, adding to the damage that Ness's Rockin was inflicting to the enemy. Indeed, after the field of energy had dissipated, only a few Starmen remained, and they looked to be in pretty ragged condition. Some of them simply fell to the ground, either unconscious or dead. After Ness's attack dissipated, Paula and Poo joined the battle, or massacre, as it had turned into, and fired off blasts of PSI Fire and PSI Freeze respectively. The already wounded Starmen could not gather themselves in time to mount any sort of defense or counterattack. The psychic blasts unleashed on them by Paula and Poo overcame them and they were either incinerated or frozen solid. In a few short seconds, the battle was over, with Ness's team the victors.

Once the battle was over, Ness and the others entered the area and saw that the path branched into two directions before them. Remembering the layout of the base from their previous adventures here, they knew that both paths would eventually take them to their desired destination. Before making his decision, Ness turned to Paula and asked, "Okay, which path has the fewest enemies?"

Paula's eyes glowed for a second and she then responded, "There are enemies down both corridors, but the path to the left has fewer strong enemies that I can sense."

That was the deciding factor for Ness and the others. They took the path to the left. Paula, being the telepath, led the way, with Ness and Poo following close behind, gripping their weapons tightly. They went through the corridor, treading lightly but quickly. The noticed that there were no enemies in the corridor. Paula turned back and told them, "I'm not sensing any enemies for a long ways, though. It appeared as if all of the enemies in our area were congregated near the branching of the path in order to intercept us."

"Let's not get too cocky, though," Poo cautioned. "There were robots in that enemy group. I wouldn't be surprised if we faced off against some robots down these corridors."

Following Poo's sage advice, the group took precautions when proceeding down the next series of corridors and entering another cave door. Upon emerging into another corridor, they were confronted by a Military Octobot, a robot with a spherical body and four tentacle-like legs. The four-legged robot saw them and immediately opened fire on them, firing several pink energy pulses at the heroes from its eyes. The party hugged the walls of the corridor and let the beams of energy pass them. Paula then took action by pulling out a bomb and tossing it towards the robot. Ness used his telekinesis to propel the bomb towards the robot. The bomb detonated, the shrapnel and concussion of the bomb inflicting massive damage to the robot. The robot then fell to the ground and remained there for a few seconds. Ness and the others did not dare approach the fallen robot, though, for they knew exactly what was coming next. The robot then exploded, spraying the entire corridor with shrapnel. After the robot's threat had passed, the group made its way down the corridor.

After walking down the corridor for a while, the path branched again. The group took the left path not wanting to loop back around to their current location, which is what would have happened had they taken the path to the right. Paula led the way again. Again, she indicated that there were no enemies present down this corridor. The group quickly darted down the corridor and went through another cave door. On the other side of the cave door, they found another large area, and another path branch. In this area, however, two Nuclear Reactor Robots caught sight of the party. The robots thrust their tentacle-like arms towards Paula, who had to quickly duck out of the way to avoid being skewered by the robot's drill-like tentacle arms. Ness responded by using his telekinesis to propel the robots into the wall. The robots promptly exploded, which surprised Ness since he did not think that he had inflicted all that much damage to the robots. The group did not stop to ponder why the robots had gone down to one attack. They merely continued on their way through the base. The group then took the path to their right at the next fork and headed down another corridor until they came to another large open area. This one, fortunately, was devoid of enemies. Continuing down the path, the group then found a second open area. This one, however, had a Nuclear Reactor Robot and a Starman waiting for the heroes. Not wanting to waste any time with the enemies, Paula fired a blast of PSI Fire Alpha at the Nuclear Reactor Robot. The fire inflicted little damage to the volatile robot, but caused it to prematurely explode. The explosion took the Starman off guard and sent the alien flying through the air. The Starman landed several yards away from his initial starting position, and remained still, having been shredded by shrapnel from the Nuclear Reactor Robot. The group then proceeded through the only exit to the area.

The followed the winding corridor until it came to another cave door. They went through the cave door and made their way into another corridor. They were greeted by a lone Starman. Poo quickly dispatched the Starman with a single blast of PSI Thunder. The Starman fell to the floor, a smoking hole in his chest, and the party surged past him down the winding corridor. Eventually, they came into an open area that was inhabited by four Starmen congregated close together. Paula and Poo quickly drew out one Super Bomb each and tossed them at the Starmen. The Starmen saw the bombs coming at them, though, and would not go down without a fight. They fired blasts of PSI Thunder at the party, but with blinding speed, Ness quickly appeared in front of Paula and Poo. The Starmen's psychic lightning struck Ness, but was reflected back at them by Ness's Franklin Badge. The Starmen's lightning struck them and lightning arced across their bodies. This was just before the two Super Bombs exploded, finishing off the Starman quartet. The group dashed past the fallen Starmen and into the corridor straight ahead. They soon emerged into another open area inhabited by two Mook Seniors. Paula quickly dispatched them with a single blast of PSI Fire, incinerating the unfortunate Mooks. With the Mook threat dealt with, the trio made their way down the next corridor. It was not long before they came upon another cave door. They then entered the cave door and emerged on a floor consisting of metallic tiles. They had entered the second part of Stonehenge Base. And if their last trip through was any indication, this was where things got tough.

Meanwhile, on the top of Mount Itoi, Giygas and some Starman servants placed the young psychic twins, Lucas and Claus in a green stasis tubes. Soon, their parents were also placed inside identical tubes. The tubes were then placed along a wall. More tubes were lining the wall, many of them filled with people. There were several human teenagers, both male and female, as well as a few adults, along with several children. Three of the tubes housed the young Kumatora and her parents. These were the psychics that Giygas and his people had captured so they could be studied. The parents of the younger psychics were also present in order to find out how some of these humans had managed to develop psychic powers of their level when their own parents had not demonstrated any psychic talents. A Starman Deluxe soon entered the dark room and examined the surroundings. With him were several Starman Supers. He approached his master and bowed. "Master, we have all of the known psychics that are not a part of the various Earth military forces."

"Good," Giygas told him. "You may begin your studies at once. Once they are finished here, take them to Luna Base so we can begin further study of them. One thing must be made clear, though. Do not harm the psychic children, or their parents."

This order puzzled the Starman Deluxe, but he saluted Giygas and said, "Understood, Master." Even though he was puzzled at Giygas's order, he knew that to challenge him on this subject was hazardous to his health. As the Starman Deluxe and his subordinates went about their business, Giygas stood in the corner out of the way of the others. He then began to think about everything that had happened recently. Feelings were returning to him, feelings that he thought he had let go of a long time ago.

After a few moments, Giygas rose and called over the Starman Deluxe. The Starman Deluxe came over and he told him, "Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha. I am leaving you in command of the base. I have…a special mission to perform," he told the Starman Deluxe hesitantly. This did not go unnoticed by the Starman Deluxe, but he did not ask Giygas what his mission was or what Giygas was really doing. He knew that Giygas was the strongest PSI Alien ever, even stronger than the current leader of the PSI Aliens, Giegue. The last thing he wanted was to have Giygas lash out at him, for if the two were to fight, the battle would end very quickly. He merely saluted as Giygas departed from the room by way of the door not too far away. As the door slid closed, the Starman Deluxe wonder aloud, "What are you planning, Master Giygas?"

Ness, Paula, and Poo treaded carefully on the metallic floor and looked over their surroundings. The dark metallic walls lined with purple lights was a drastic departure from the cave-like walls of the first part of the base. Not far ahead, a ladder led to the lower floor. Remembering the layout of the base, the trio climbed down the ladder and reached the lower floor. As soon as they took two steps forward on the ledge, two Starman Supers appeared directly in front of them. Not wanting to waste any of their ordnance on the Starman Supers, Paula and Poo decided to face them using two streams of PSI Thunder. Lightning erupted from their hands towards the Starman Supers. The Starman Supers retaliated with blasts of PSI Fire, but their psychic attacks were overpowered by the humans' psychic lightning. The lightning struck the two Starmen directly in the chest, but the attacks were not sufficient to kill them. However, the Starmen did fall to the ground, paralyzed by the lightning. Ness then rushed over to them with blinding speed and swung his bat down onto the head of each of the Starmen. He struck at them until he was certain that they would never rise again. With that threat out of the way, the group proceeded to make their way towards a gift box. Ness decided that it would be best for him to examine the box and see if there was anything worthwhile in the box. Paula and Poo stayed back, with Paula eying Ness closely. The viciousness of his attack on the paralyzed Starmen surprised her. Still, she did not call Ness on it, yet. She had seen how powerful the Starmen of this time were. The last thing the party could afford was to let a Starman get the drop on them from behind, especially a Starman Super. She would continue to observe him and only if he seemed to take too much joy in the fighting, and killing, or did so too easily, would she talk to him about his behavior. After all, he had not killed those bears outside of Stonehenge Base. If anything, he had shown a great deal of restraint when dealing with them.

Ness went over to the box and examined it. After seeing that it did not appear to be booby-trapped, he opened the box. Inside the box was a PSI Caramel, an edible item that could help replenish psychic energy. Knowing that he went over to Paula and offered her the PSI Caramel. She accepted the PSI Caramel, thanking him in the process, and ate it. She soon felt a refreshing sensation come over her as some of her psychic energy was replenished. As soon as they were finished, the group headed over towards the ladder that led down to the next level.

On the next lower level, the group went down another corridor towards a large set of double doors. The corridor was abandoned so they faced no resistance getting to the double doors. When they reached the door, they paused for a moment. Paula extended her psychic senses and sensed that the next room was deserted. After informing the rest of the party of her findings, the group went on through. Indeed, the interior of the room was completely deserted. Spying a door at the far end of the room, the trio approached. Paula led the way since her telepathy would allow her to detect what was on the other side of the door. Her eyes glowed for a few seconds as she took stock of the enemy presence in the next set of corridors. After her eyes stopped glowing, she made her report. "There are several enemy parties between us and the room of captives."

"Captives?" Ness asked.

Paula nodded.

"So there _are_ other prisoners here," Poo stated, as if confirming a suspicion.

Once Poo was finished, Ness motioned for Paula to continue. "The enemies consist of Starman Supers, Starmen, Military Octobots, Mook Seniors, Greater Mooks, and Nuclear Reactor Robots. The parties are often mixed, so we can likely deal some major damage to the parties by taking out the Military Octobots or Nuclear Reactor Robots from range before engaging the other enemies directly." The others nodded. With that, they proceeded to make their way into the next corridor.

Upon entering the next corridor, they found that the walls were pitch black, and the floor was a dark blue. There was little lighting as well, so Paula created a small psychic flame in her hand and used it as a flashlight. As such, Poo joined her up front, ready to use PSI Thunder on any party that consisted of a Starman Super. Not far ahead, there was a party of enemy soldiers consisting of two Nuclear Reactor Robots and two Military Octobots. The trio almost laughed at that array of enemies, for the destruction of one robot would lead to a chain reaction that destroyed all four. Knowing this, Paula stopped and backed away for a bit. She then released a ball of PSI Fire at barely its Alpha level and propelled it towards the lead robot, a Nuclear Reactor Robot. The small ball of PSI Fire struck the robot and exploded, causing the robot to catch fire. After a few seconds of firing its beams wildly, the robot exploded. Its explosion caught the other robots in its blast radius and inflicted fatal damage to those robots as well, which only caused them to self-destruct as well. Ness and the others were well away from the robots, so they were in no danger of being hurt by their explosions. In less than five seconds, the battle was over. Ness and his friends had emerged victorious. The trio then proceeded to make their way down the corridor once more.

After a short distance, the path branched off to the left a bit. The paths on this floor were a bit of a maze so finding the correct path would be critical if they wished to avoid any unnecessary battles. They took a sharp left when the path branched and they went down the corridor. Down this corridor was a Starman Super with a trio of normal Starmen for support. Not wanting to waste psychic energy against these enemies, Paula took out a bomb and tossed it over at the quartet of Starmen. The bomb landed close to a Starman Super, who noticed the explosive device a little too late for him to do anything about it. The bomb exploded and unleashed a deadly barrage of shrapnel at him. The explosion also sent the Starman Super, and his cohorts, flying. The Starman Super landed a ways away from his starting position, but he was still alive, despite the grievous wounds that he had suffered. He retaliated with a blast of PSI Thunder directed at Paula. Ness stepped in front of Paula and took the attack for her, his Franklin Badge reflecting the lightning back at the Starman Super. The Starman Super was struck by his own attack, and it was by his own attack that he was killed. The Starman Super fell over into a heap and never rose again. Paula then noticed the other Starmen congregating together in order to launch a series of psychic attacks of unknown types. Paula would have none of that and she drew out her remaining bomb and tossed it over to them. The bomb bounced on the floor near the Starmen and detonated. The explosion inflicted fatal injuries to the Starmen and sent them flying. The Starmen landed in heaps in various parts of the corridor, never to rise again. Once the battle was finished, the group trudged on.

Soon, after noticing that the path seemed to almost loop around, they noticed another branch in the path. One led straight to a set of double doors, and another went to the right. They group knew that the path straight ahead would lead them to their desired destination, but something caused Paula to want to duck down the path to the right. She did so and she found another gift box. Approaching the gift box, she reached down and opened it. Inside the gift box was a Pixie's Bracelet. She instantly felt the power in the bracelet and knew that it would not only increase her durability, but also help protect her against hypnosis. She then took off her Diamond Band and placed it in her purse, and put on the Pixie's Bracelet. She then went to rejoin the group.

"What did you find?" Ness asked, curious about Paula's treasure.

Paula smiled and replied, "A treasure that will hopefully help us in beating the PSI Aliens." That was good enough for Ness. The group then made its way through the large double doors.

In the next room, the metallic floor tiles were gray once more, and the walls had flashing lights that simulated the night sky. The teens soon noticed several green tubes in the middle of the room. Upon further inspection, they found that the tubes were occupied by humans, and at least one of them was occupied by a Mr. Saturn. The biggest revelation came when Poo examined one of the tubes and noticed someone who looked just like Jeff Andonuts inside. Poo was certain that this had to be the real Jeff Andonuts.

"Hey everybody, come quickly!" he called over to them excitedly.

"What is it?" Paula asked in response as she and Ness went over to Poo.

"I think we've found Jeff," came Poo's response.

When Ness went for a closer look, he said, "I do believe you're right." They all checked the person inside the tube. He wore eyeglasses, the school uniform of the Snow Wood Boarding School, and the person also had blond hair. The only thing that puzzled them was the fact that Jeff had seemingly not aged a day since he had disappeared, despite Flint telling them that he appeared three years ago. Paula did a quick scan of the boy's mind to identify him and, indeed, found that it was Jeff Andonuts. However, he was in stasis, as were the rest of the captives, at least one of them being a psychic.

"It is him," Paula told the others. "And I can sense several other minds as well. At least one of them is a psychic with some power."

"Any idea why they were placed in stasis rather than killed?" Ness asked. He did not want to bring up such a dark topic but he felt that the answer to the question would be important to how the group proceeded.

Paula shook her head. "No. But I have a feeling that the Starman Deluxe in the next room might have an answer."

"So the base is run by a Starman Deluxe, just like before," Poo noted. He soon drew his sword once more and he gripped it tightly. "Is there anyone else with him?"

Paula shook her head again. "No. He's alone." That boosted the party's spirits. Paula soon added, "But he knows that there are intruders, and is eager to face them. He also suspects that we are the intruders; meaning that he's ready for us."

That statement did little to dampen the spirits of Ness and Poo. They, too, were confident in their ability to handle the Starman Deluxe with no problems. When they were through in the holding room, they proceeded to make their way into the next room.

In the next room, they saw the Starman Deluxe standing before a black globe. They did not know the purpose of the globe, and they did not care. They were there to face the Starman Deluxe and save their friend. Ness drew out his bat, and Poo tightened his grip on his sword.

"So you finally made it," the Starman Deluxe said casually, turning to face the three teens. "I must say that your arrival does not surprise me. When I heard that you had been captured in Onett, I was skeptical of the others' ability to keep you detained for long. And I had a feeling that you had known that your friend was here so you allowed yourselves to be captured. As such, I have been waiting for your arrival for quite some time." He then paused for a moment, waiting for their response. It soon came in the form of a command.

"Release Jeff and the other prisoners now," Ness commanded, his eyes starting to glow. The Starman Deluxe was not intimidated.

"No," he replied curtly.

Ness then tightened the grip on his bat and took a step forward. The Starman Deluxe then assumed a fighter's stance and chuckled. "Don't you dare underestimate me. I'm a lot stronger than previous Starman Deluxes."

What this Starman Deluxe did not realize was that Ness and the others already figured that out, having faced one of the newer breed of Starman Deluxes in Onett. "You can't beat me," the Starman Deluxe added, and he attacked by firing a green beam at the teens. The teens scattered as the beam struck the floor and blew a noticeable hole into the ground, throwing up metallic shards. Poo quickly retaliated with a blast of PSI Thunder at its Omega level. He wanted to end this fight, and take down the Starman Deluxe's PSI Shield Beta as quickly as possible. Paula, however, had begun to scan the Starman and upon entering his mind, found that he not only knew a lot of psychic attacks, but could perform them at high levels, some of them exceeding the levels that she and the others could perform. One such technique was his PSI Shield Beta, which was not affected by PSI Thunder attacks. Noticing that Poo was about to unleash a blast of PSI Thunder on the Starman, she quickly cried out in warning, "Wait, Poo! That won't work!" But it was too late.

Poo unleashed his PSI Thunder Omega before Paula's warning had reached him. Searing bolts of lightning erupted from Poo's fingers as he focused all of his psychic might against the Starman Deluxe. The Starman Deluxe seemed to recoil in surprise, but was merely playacting. Poo's lightning struck his psychic counter shield and was stopped for a moment before being reflected back at Poo. Poo's eyes widened in shock as he saw the lightning rocket back towards him. He tried to evade the attack, but it was too fast for him. He took the blast straight in the chest and lightning arced all around his body. Poo then fell to the floor, either dead or dying. Ness, who was about to attack, but noticed Poo's predicament, quickly went over to aid his comrade, using Lifeup Gamma on him. Before Poo could succumb to his injuries, he was fully healed by Ness. Upon reviving, he told Ness, "His psychic shield works against PSI Thunder as well." This was something that did not affect Ness much, since he did not know PSI Thunder, but it would have been news for Paula, if she had not telepathically scanned this information from the Starman Deluxe earlier. Still, she did note that the Starman Deluxe's psychic counter shield was weakened by the attack. However, the benefit of damaging the shield was not worth the cost of getting oneself nearly killed by one's own reflected attack. This meant that they were now restricted to using physical attacks and items. Fortunately, they still had a good number of Super Bombs remaining so they could still engage in a ranged battle.

Paula quickly raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party to protect them from any of the Starman Deluxe's psychic attacks. The Starman Deluxe then began to power up a PSI Starstorm Omega and he targeted the party. Ness then drew out a Super Bomb and tossed it over to the Starman Deluxe. The Starman Deluxe was not worried about the explosive device. He knew that while the explosion would hurt, he was too powerful to be taken down by only one such weapon. The bomb landed near his feet and exploded. The force of the explosion pushed him backwards a few feet, but otherwise, he emerged from the explosion in relatively good condition. The blast was also not enough to disrupt his concentration while he powered his attack to its Omega level. The Starman then unleashed a PSI Starstorm Omega upon Ness and the others, green orbs of energy streaking towards them. The orbs were stopped when they collided with the psychic shield that Paula had erected over the group. They then rocketed back towards the Starman Deluxe. He was not disturbed by his own incoming attack since he was still protected from his reflected attack by his psychic counter shield. The stars then struck his shield and rocketed back at Ness's party. By this time, Poo had drawn one of his Super Bombs and tossed it at the Starman Deluxe. The bomb landed at his feet and exploded. This bomb inflicted some more damage to the Starman, but he was still standing, his suit yet to be breached by the shrapnel. Still, the Starman Deluxe's Starstorm Omega was ricocheting between the shields of the two parties. Eventually, though, the Starman Deluxe's shield shattered on the last impact from his Starstorm attack. The Starman Deluxe realized that he had to do something fast or else he was going to be hit by his own attack; and given the damage the two Super Bombs had inflicted on him, that would be fatal. Unfortunately, before he could concentrate to raise another psychic shield, he was thrown into the wall by Ness's telekinesis. This dazed the Starman Deluxe for a moment, but a moment was all that was necessary to prevent him from raising a psychic counter shield in time to save himself. The stream of stars rocketed towards him at blinding speed. The Starman Deluxe cried, "Nooooo!" as the orbs of energy collided with his body and destroyed him. The first star struck him and exploded, only inflicting minor tears to his suit. The second star knocked him off his feet. The third star struck him and exploded, managing to inflict damage to the body of the Starman Deluxe, silvery blood leaking from the cuts. The fourth star was the one that finished the Starman Deluxe off. It collided with him and blew him apart. The rest of the stars merely collided with the pieces of the Starman Deluxe and vaporized them. The stars continued unabated, boring into the wall behind where the Starman Deluxe one stood, and traveling on throughout the rest of the base, destroying everything in their path until they dissipated. With that, the battle was over.

After the battle had ended, Ness and the others backtracked into the holding room. Once they got inside, they found that the tubes were now empty. The occupants of the stasis tubes were now free and walking about the room. Most of them seemed to be minding their own business, but a few were talking to each other about what had happened, one of them being Jeff. Jeff spotted Ness and the others enter and he cried out jokingly, "Hey, what took you guys so long?" He rushed over to them and greeted them with a hug. Each of them was like family to him.

A voice soon sounded over the din and said, "So, who are these newcomers?" The party found that it belonged to a relatively old man his mid to late fifties.

Jeff turned around and replied, "These are my friends, Ness, Paula, and Poo."

"They're psychics," a Middle Eastern man noted quaintly. "And powerful ones if their minds are completely closed to me."

Jeff nodded. Ness noticed that Jeff had some familiarity with these people and asked, "Hey Jeff, who are these guys?"

Jeff turned around and said, "Sorry, I guess you just arrived. The older man is General Scamp, formerly of the Threed Air Base." He motioned towards the general, who saluted him back. "And the Middle Eastern man is Captain," he looked at the rank insignia and corrected himself, "forgive me, _Major_, Karim. As you can guess, he's a psychic. He's a telepath."

"I was a member of the official UN Armed Forces until my capture at the hands of a new breed of Starman."

"A new breed of Starman?" Jeff questioned.

Karim was about to give an answer when he stopped for a moment. "Something's wrong," he said with a hint of anxiety.

Both Paula and Poo then extended their psychic senses outward. They soon noticed that the base was completely abandoned save for the people in the holding room. Soon, a warning klaxon went off and a voice speaking in an alien language sounded. It was similar to the whirs and clicks of a robot. The psychics did not need to be told what was happening to know what was going on. Stonehenge Base was about to be destroyed.

"We have to get out of here now!" Poo exclaimed. "This base is about to be destroyed."

"But how can we get out of here in time?" one of the other former captives asked. "We're deep underground."

Ness answered, "Everyone, gather around me. I'm going to teleport us out of here."

"But will we be able to get far enough away?" Paula asked. "The ship we came in landed awfully close to the base."

"I'm not teleporting us back to the wrecked ship," Ness told her. "I'm taking us to Dr. Andonuts's lab. That should be far enough away that it shouldn't suffer any damage." That seemed to alleviate Paula's concerns.

Jeff and Poo then gathered everyone close to Ness. He then grabbed hold of Paula's hand, while Paula took Jeff's, and Jeff took Poo's, and so on and so forth until a line was formed where everyone was within contact so that Ness could teleport everyone out of the base. The ground began to tremble as he started to concentrate. His eyes glowed and they then disappeared from Stonehenge Base. A mere ten seconds later, the base exploded. Dirt was thrown up from the Stonehenge monument and the ground collapsed in on itself. Many of the stone structures fell and rolled down to the bottom of the crater that had formed. After a few seconds, the ground stopped shaking, only four stones from the ring remaining upright.

The party and the rescued captives appeared just outside a building. It looked to be made out of plates of battleship armor welded together. The word, _LAB_ hung on the wall in big, bold neon letters. Ness felt the ground tremble as the Stonehenge Base self-destructed. He looked around and called out, "Everybody alright?"

A chorus of affirmatives answered in response. He quickly scanned the crowd and found that everyone was okay. This was good. Jeff then went up to the door that led into the lab and pushed a series of buttons on the panel next to the entrance to the lab. After a few seconds, the door slid open and he went in. Ness, Paula, Poo, along with Major Karim and General Scamp also entered, along with a strong, muscled black man. Jeff saw the three relative unknown men enter the lab but he made no attempts to keep them out. Ness went up to him and asked, "What made you come in here?"

Jeff answered in reply, "I've got some stuff I've been working on in here. It'll help us when dealing with Giygas and the PSI Aliens."

He then went over to one of the cluttered tables and pulled out a gun that looked like a B-grade science fiction movie pistol. He flicked the power switch on and a low hum could be heard. He took aim at a metal target and fired. A scarlet pulse of energy erupted from the barrel of the weapon. The pulse of energy instantly struck the metallic target and burned a hole straight through it. "Excellent," Jeff exclaimed. "The new Gaia Beam pistol still works like a charm."

Ness remembered the effect of Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol during their last adventures. And if anything, this version was more advanced and powerful than the last. Jeff then holstered the weapon and he then went over the rest of the lab, checking for more equipment. He quickly found his unfinished Counter PSI Helmet and placed it into his backpack. The Counter PSI Helmet, once finished, would be able to block an enemy psychic from being able to use his/her/its psychic powers, or if they could use their powers, it would be at a diminished level. He hoped to finish the Counter PSI Helmet once they were finished here. Next to the Counter PSI Helmet was a gun-like object with a miniature radar dish at the business end of the weapon. Jeff referred to it as a Shield Killer. It was an item that could break through and destroy enemy shields, psychic shields, and counter shields. This device had been completed and was a more advanced version of the one that had been used to great effect by Jeff on their last adventure. He placed this weapon in a holster on the left side of his hip. Jeff then reached up towards a ledge and he pulled down another weapon that looked like a B-grade science fiction gun. This weapon was a Hungry HP Sucker. It could drain an enemy's health and energy and add it to Jeff. He tucked the Hungry HP Sucker in his jacket. Jeff also went over to another table and found the blueprints to a weapon that he hoped would give him a chance should he be forced to face down a psychic or other mystical opponent alone. Jeff called it a PSI Disruptor. Finally, on a table not too far away were five Multi Bottle Rockets. These weapons were extremely powerful missile weapons that could inflict obscene damage to an unshielded opponent. One Multi Bottle Rocket was powerful enough to kill a Starman Deluxe in one hit despite his psychically enhanced durability. He quickly stuffed them into his backpack. Once Jeff finished gathering his weapons, he went over and got four cell phones for himself and his friends.

Once he was finished gathering his weapons and items, he went back over to Ness and his friends. He handed them a cell phone. He told them, "Okay, now I'm ready."

With that, they turned to make their way out of the lab. Before leaving, though, Jeff called over to General Scamp and offered, "Hey, I won't be coming back here for a while, so take your pick of the weapons and blueprints here. Use them to help deal with the PSI Aliens and their soldiers."

General Scamp turned to Jeff and said, "Are you sure?"

Jeff nodded. "I won't be having much use for them. I have everything I can carry with me right now. So help yourselves." To show his sincerity, he handed Scamp his Baddest Beam Gun.

General Scamp accepted the gun, then thanked Jeff and saluted him. Jeff then saluted the general back. Scamp and the others then went over the lab in order to get everything they could carry from the lab. Once they were finished, Scamp then called in a helicopter to come and pick everyone up. He turned to Jeff and the others and said, "I called for a helicopter to come get us. We could take you back to America if you want."

Jeff considered the general's offer. Still, he wanted to finish that Counter PSI Helmet so it could be helpful to Ness. He also wanted to stay with Ness because he felt that Ness was the one person who had the best chance of beating Giygas and the PSI Aliens at the moment. Ness then came over and told Scamp, "Thank you, General, but we have our own way of getting back to town. Right now, I think Jeff wants to stay here and do some more research. His gadgets and weapons could go a long way to helping what's left of humanity win this war."

Scamp could not argue with Ness's logic. From the little that he had seen of the lab, Jeff had to have devices that were centuries ahead of what Earth could currently produce. He hesitantly left the lab after a few seconds of taking one more look at it. He was soon followed by Karim and the muscled black man, both of who stopped and thanked Ness and the others. They were currently carrying energy rifles and pistols, along with some belts of Super Bombs and a couple of bazookas. Before leaving, Scamp went up to Jeff and said, "Mr. Andonuts, if there's anything you need, don't hesitate to give me a call. I'll do whatever I can to help."

"Thank you, General," Jeff replied, saluting Scamp. Scamp returned the salute and he then exited the lab.

Once the general exited the lab, he and the others distributed the weapons to the other soldiers and former captives present. They waited for an hour until the cargo twin-rotor helicopter arrived to pick them up. Once it arrived, they proceeded to board the cargo helicopter. After everyone was onboard, the helicopter lifted off and left the scene.

Once the helicopter had left, Ness went over to Jeff and said, "Hey Jeff, assuming Saturn Valley is untouched by the PSI Aliens, we've got something there that you might be able to work on."

This piqued Jeff's curiosity, "Yeah, what is it?" he asked eagerly.

"It's a large robot," Paula burst in. "It is one of the most advanced robots that someone named George made in the early nineteen hundreds. It was destroyed in a previous fight, but you could probably fix it and enhance it so it could help out against the PSI Aliens."

"Okay, I'll give it a try when I get the chance," he responded.

The Chosen Four then turned around and suddenly they were standing face to face with a cat-like humanoid figure with milky-white skin that stood at over seven feet tall. They noticed that the alien had an emerald draped around his neck. Still they instantly recognized the new arrival. It was Giygas. The quartet took a few steps back at the sight of the alien and readied themselves for the fight of their lives. Ness and Poo drew their bat and sword respectively, and Jeff pulled out his Shield Killer and his Gaia Beam pistol and pointed it right at Giygas's head. Giygas, however, made no hostile moves towards the teens. He simply called out, "Wait," while extending his hands. This took the teens off guard. They did not know what to make of this action. As such, they did not lower their guard for an instant. They would be even more confused when Giygas said, "I haven't come here to fight. Just the opposite. I've come here to help you."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4:

The Chosen Four took a step back and steeled themselves for the fight of their lives, not believing Giygas's claim of not wanting to fight for a moment. Upon hearing that Giygas wanted to help them, Ness began to laugh out loud. "Yeah, you must think we're all idiots," he told the alien. Ness then drew out a Super Bomb and upon activating it, tossed it at Giygas. Giygas held out his left hand and stopped the bomb mid-flight. He then pushed the activation stud to its inactive position and deactivated the bomb, softly setting it on the ground. He did this while Jeff fired multiple bursts of energy from his Gaia Beam pistol and Hungry HP Sucker, and Poo fired a volley of Starstorm Omega. Each attack struck Giygas, but his shield managed to absorb every single one of the attacks. He also took notice that Paula had not joined the others in attacking him. It seemed as if she may have been willing to hear him out.

"The fact that I did not toss this bomb back at you, reflect any of your attacks, or rend you limb from limb for attacking should prove my good intentions," Giygas told them calmly.

Ness considered what Giygas had told him. He had to admit that Giygas did have a point. If he could casually withstand the assault that had been unleashed against him, he could have inflicted a lot of damage to them by now, especially since they knew that he could use counters. Still, Ness could not forget the torture that Giygas had inflicted on Ninten and his party before he and the others had arrived to help, or the fact that he was in charge of an invasion force that had killed billions of people, and chances were that he had killed more than a few humans himself as well. And that was before seeing what Giygas had tried to do to his adoptive mother, Maria. He did not care that Maria was not Giygas's biological mother; she had raised him since he was an infant. She was more of a mother to Giygas than his own biological mother.

"Why should we trust you?" came Ness's response. "After all you have done, why should we believe that you have suddenly decided to help us defeat your own people?"

"If I had wanted you dead, you'd be dead," Giygas responded harshly. He also assumed a defensive stance. Ness knew that Giygas was powerful, and that if he did want the group dead, he could kill them. Still, something did not seem right. Giygas had always taken an interest in the group, taunting them, but rarely engaging them head on. He certainly did not seem to be a secret good guy when he had tortured Ninten and his wife and friends. Still the fact that they had been intact, so Ness could revive them may have meant something. He still had misgivings, though, and he was going to call Giygas on all of his actions, and atrocities.

"When did you suddenly have this change of heart?" he asked the alien.

"I had it when I was ordered to attack Earth at the turn of your millennium," Giygas answered. Ness smirked. He had him.

"Really," Ness challenged. "You certainly seemed broken up about torturing Ninten and his party, or toying with us on Mount Itoi. What about when you tried to turn Paula into a psychic weapon for your army? And what about all of those cities your people have destroyed. Why didn't you try to save them? Why did you kidnap Kumatora and her family? Why did you kidnap Flint's family? And last, but not least, what about when you fought your mother when you were a child? You certainly did not hold back against her then, from what I remember."

That last question had struck a nerve. Giygas's eyes immediately glowed an unnatural shade of green and he grabbed Ness in a telekinetic hold and lifted him into the air. "That battle against Mother has haunted me to this day," he growled at the human teen. "Not a day goes by when I don't think about how close I came to murdering her, or the fact that I had the intention to murder her in my heart." He then tossed Ness backwards. Ness hit the ground and skidded for a few meters, but he soon rose to face Giygas once more. "You want to know why I wish to help you?" Giygas continued. "Maria. That's why. I dishonored her memory when I fought her the way I did, and later when I fought Ninten, her descendant, Ana, and Lloyd. That was why their song was so effective against me in our first battle. They caused me to remember Maria. I am the good that was cast out of the being that later became the Universal Cosmic Destroyer Giygas. I am his soul. I carry around the guilt of horrible atrocities that I committed before reaching Earth. This is my way of atoning for my crimes."

"Then why did you torture Ninten and his friends on Mount Itoi?" Ness asked, not letting Giygas off the hook. While what Giygas was telling him made sense, he still did not trust the alien.

"So that my forces would not get wise to the fact that I was actually helping you," Giygas roared in response. "Think, Ness! I had my forces arrayed in a way that would allow you to pick them off one by one. I ordered the Starman Deluxe to not attack you so that when he did, he would be at a disadvantage. Why do you think I used the 'Go Somewhere Beam' on you in Onett rather than fighting and killing you right then and there? Why haven't I fought back against you right now?"

"I don't know," Ness admitted, looking down at the ground, and relenting for the time being in his interrogation of Giygas. While he did not continue to grill Giygas immediately, he still thought that there was something off in Giygas's offer. So far, he had only offered to help, but had not mentioned how he would help them.

"I'll say again," Giygas began in a calmer voice, having regained his composure, "I have come here to help you defeat my people and save your species. What is your answer? Are you willing to work with me?"

Ness did not give his answer immediately. He took a few steps back and sat on the ground, thinking about his options and the recent events. Giygas made no move while Ness contemplated the situation. Paula soon came over to him and said, "While you were interrogating Giygas, he opened his mind to us. I felt that he was sincere. He made no attempt to alter his thoughts and I detected no lies. I also did not detect the hints of mind control, either." After a second, she added, "I think he's being honest."

Jeff and Poo, who had not weighed in on the current discussion with Giygas, came over to Ness and offered their opinions. Jeff offered his opinion, saying, "What Giygas says does make sense. I always felt as if the assassination on the world leaders before I was placed in stasis was almost a warning to the Earth, rather than any real attempt to weaken an already weakened world. After all, we were able to get infiltrators into the groups organizing the attack. Given the psychic nature of Starmen, I doubt that they got in without the guards and screeners sleeping on the job, unless they had an unknown benefactor."

Poo agreed. "Not only that, but there's the fact that we're still alive. He had us clear out Mount Itoi, and only had a token force attack us before we went forward into the future. That has to count for something. And there's Paula's telepathic sense, and the fact that she has a great deal of empathy. She can usually tell when someone is lying, even if their mind is closed to us, which Giygas's is not."

While Ness valued the advice of his friends, he still did not trust Giygas. He decided to ask one last question before he gave his answer. "Giygas. If we refuse your offer, would you leave us be and let us go about our business without interrupting us?"

"Yes," Giygas said, short and to the point. Ness then turned to Paula. She nodded slightly, indicating that to the best of her knowledge, Giygas was telling the truth.

Ness then turned back to face Giygas. "Very well," he called over to the alien. "On the advice of my friends, I am willing to hear your offer."

That was good enough for Giygas. He then walked over to Ness and the others. He held out his hands and two stones appeared in his grasp. Giygas then went over to Paula and Poo and handed each of them a stone. "What are these?" Paula asked.

"They look like Sound Stones," Ness replied before Giygas could give an answer, peering over at each of the stones and remembering his own Sound Stone that had been given to him by Buzz Buzz at the onset of the War Against Giygas.

"Quite right, Ness," Giygas stated, eying Ness. "I take it you've seen these before."

Ness nodded. "During the War Against Giygas, the Universal Cosmic Destroyer Giygas," he added quickly, "an alien gave me a Sound Stone. It helped me to unlock my full psychic potential. Still, I wonder how you managed to get a hold of two such stones."

"Yes, these devices are known to be able to do that. Still, it only unlocks your maximum potential for your age. A thirteen year old will still be weaker than a thirty year old who has trained him or herself in psychic power, even when said thirteen year old has unlocked his or her psychic potential," Giygas explained. "As for how I got a hold of these stones, my people attacked a planet with psychic insects. Many of the 'enemy' were able to flee, but those that remained behind to deny us their treasures were killed and we stopped them from destroying their planet. These stones were found in the subsequent sacking of their world.

Ness did not respond, but he already knew about the use of the Sound Stone, and its potential limitation. He was noticeably stronger now than he was three years ago, even before Maria had taught him how to control his psychic power. Still, Giygas's answer of how he had managed to get a hold of two Sound Stones unsettled him. It made sense, but that did not make Ness feel any more comfortable about the situation. He then took Paula and Poo aside and quietly said, "I would scan those stones if I were you. I still don't trust him."

Paula frowned. "Will you get off it, Ness? You're just being a worrier. If Giygas wanted us dead, we'd be dead. He's offered to help us and I cannot sense any deception in him."

"That doesn't mean much considering he's a lot stronger than all of us put together," Ness countered. He was still uncomfortable with this new alliance.

"Tell me this, then," Paula challenged, "If Giygas was still working for the PSI Aliens, why would he be helping us, given the fact that he could kill us, and that we seem to be the most powerful human psychics ever?"

Ness had to admit that Paula had a point. He merely frowned and said, "I don't know." Just after he had spoken, Ness began to ask himself what use Giygas would have for them alive. If there were a legitimate reason that even as an enemy he might want them to still be alive, then he might actually still be working for the PSI Aliens. After all, one does not easily turn against one's own species, especially in a war of genocide where it's kill or be killed. And at the end of this war, either the humans, or the PSI Aliens would be extinct. Even though Giygas's people were evil, it would still be difficult for a person to go against one's own species if that meant almost certain extinction for said species. At least, it _should_ be difficult. The fact that humanity was restricted to one planet, and the PSI Aliens could simply move on, though, could alleviate some of Giygas's concern.

Still, Paula and Poo took Ness's advice and scanned the stones. Neither of them could feel any special psychic presence. Poo, however, could feel a great deal of energy emanating from the stones. However, this energy was warm, neutral. It was not guided or sentient in any way. He turned back to Ness and informed him, "The stones seem to not be under any psychic enchantment."

Ness did not respond immediately. "As stated before, I'll let him tag along. But that does not mean that I trust him." There were some things that Ness had difficulty letting go of. Despite Giygas's seemingly sincere intentions, he could not shake the feeling that Giygas was lying to them. He looked back at Giygas and for a moment, he thought he could see Maria and the man that he had seen talking to Giygas on the balcony at the Live House. He noticed that Maria looked sad, while the man was seemingly angry, and even ready to strike. Their expressions softened when their eyes met Ness's. Then they looked sternly at him, as if in warning. The two then disappeared. That clinched it for Ness. He would be keeping a close eye on Giygas for as long as he was with the team. There was no way that he trusted him now, not if Maria and that unknown man, possibly, or rather, likely, an angel, seemed to be warning him of treachery. Still, there may be a way to make this turn of events advantageous for them. If he managed to find out how Giygas fought, what techniques he tended to use, what his shields were capable of, etcetera, he might be able to formulate a plan if, or should he say, _when_, Giygas turned against them.

Giygas then broke through Ness's reverie when he called the four teens. "Listen, as Ness knows, the way the Sound Stones work is that you store melodies at various Your Sanctuary locations from throughout the world. Oftentimes, that means defeating the Sanctuary Guardian."

"Well, this is good, since I've already used the Sound Stone at My Sanctuary locations," Ness informed him.

"It doesn't work like that," Giygas added. "Ness's Sanctuaries won't necessarily work for the two of you, and myself. The necklace I wear contains a third Sound Stone for myself. Once you get all of the melodies, there are eight of them, you'll each go inside of your own Magicant, a realm inside your mind, and do battle with the evil in your heart. Should you emerge victorious, you'll realize a power far greater than that which you currently possess. It will be essential for beating my people."

Paula considered Giygas's explanation for the Sound Stone. If it worked the way that he described, it would be very useful to her. One thing had haunted Paula ever since the end of the War Against Giygas three years ago. It was the fact that she had been kidnapped numerous times and was always in need of rescue. It was the primary reason that she had been training so hard in the martial arts as well as in the use of her psychic powers. Still, despite becoming stronger, she had always felt as if there was still untapped potential. If this stone could help her reach that potential, then she was all for using it to its fullest effect. She glanced back at Ness, who was the only psychic not to receive a stone. She figured that it was because he had already unlocked his full psychic potential. Ness still seemed to eye Giygas suspiciously.

As for Poo, he did not have any uncertainties about his power or his position. Still, he was eager to awaken his full potential. Still, what Ness had said had caused him to consider the situation. He remembered that when Ness had awakened his full psychic potential, filling the Sound Stone with melodies was only part of the process, he also had to journey though his mind, and while he did that, he was unconscious. That meant that when they went to battle the evil or restraints inside their own minds, that they would be out for a time, and thus, vulnerable to attack. Still, it was a risk that he was willing to take since as they were now, they had no chance against Giygas, much less the PSI Aliens.

Giygas soon spoke again, "I know of five current Sanctuary locations at this time. After we unlock certain Sanctuaries, the stones will lead us to the next. The first Sanctuary location is here in Winters, in a school you call Snow Wood Boarding School."

Jeff recognized the name of his old boarding school so he blurted out, "Hey, that's not too far away from here."

"I know," Giygas said. "I can take us there, now. Even better is the fact that it is currently only occupied by a few rodents and lesser servants of the PSI Lords, the name my race gives itself, so it should be relatively easy to get to the Sanctuary. Even the Abominable Snow Bunny is not all that difficult to defeat. With the five of us, it should be defeated quite easily." Giygas then turned to Ness, who still seemed to be wary of him and asked, "Is this alright with you? You are the leader of this team, and as such, I am working with you and will not usurp your position."

Ness did not give an immediate answer. He had never really viewed himself as the leader of the team, nor had he ever seemed to give ranks to the other members. Giygas, however, saw things differently. That was not important, though. What was important was whether or not Giygas was leading them into a trap. He turned to Jeff and asked, "How well do you know your old school? Is it going to be a lot different from what you remember?"

"It shouldn't be," Jeff replied. "I was there all throughout the last three years. I'm only coming home to be schooled closer to home now. I should be able to tell you if we're being led into a trap."

That was good enough for Ness. Ness turned back to Giygas and replied, "It's fine with me. Let's go."

Giygas then gave a nod. He looked up into the sky and suddenly, the wintry scene before them then promptly vanished and the party was gone.

The party reappeared before a large, gated building in the northern area of Winters. Jeff immediately recognized this location. "Snow Wood Boarding School," he said a low, wispy voice. Apparently, Giygas was keeping his word. Jeff looked to his right and he saw the shop just outside the school where he used to buy items and extra meals in school. He also remembered that it had some strange and unique items as well. The shop also still appeared to be open, so Jeff took a little side trip to check out its merchandise.

Ness noticed Jeff break off from the main group and called out, "Hey, where are you going?" as he rushed after his friend.

Jeff looked back at the approaching Ness and waited for him to be close so he could give his answer. "The shop outside the school sells some strange and unique items, or at least did when I still attended. If you're right about Giygas and he is leading us into a trap, or even if he won't do it until later, then we've gotta equip ourselves properly. The special coins that the shop sells have properties that allow us to increase our durability. If that's not worth the detour, I don't know what is."

Ness smiled. Apparently, he was not the only one who had some suspicions about Giygas, or at least if Jeff was not outright suspicious, he was still taking precautions in case he was wrong about the PSI Alien. "Lead the way," Ness told him in response.

The two then went towards the plain-looking shop outside the school while Paula and Poo stayed behind with Giygas. Giygas did not make any moves to stop the two as they headed over to the shop. When they arrived at the store, they entered. Inside the shop, the shelves were lined with merchandise. A man was sitting behind the desk and took notice of the two customers that had entered the shop. "Well I never," he began. "Two customers out here in dull, dreary Winters, this close to the Snow Wood Boarding School. I was beginning to think that I had to shut this place down. And one of the customers just happens to be Jeffery Andonuts," he added, staring at the blond teenager. "Is there anything I can help you find?" he asked in a friendly tone.

"No, thanks," Jeff replied in an equally friendly tone. "We know what we're looking for." Ness nodded in agreement with Jeff. Jeff went to one of the shelves and quickly found what he was looking for. "There it is, Ness," he told his friend, pointing to the gold coin on the shelf. "The Coin of Silence. It's not as good as a Souvenir Coin that you got on your last adventure, but it still helps boost one's durability and can help its holder get a little luckier in battle."

Ness had not problems with the coin, until he saw the price tag. It cost twenty-five hundred dollars. Inflation must have hit Winters pretty hard in the last several decades. Still, Ness had the money to afford a coin for himself so he took one of the coins and began to make his way over to the cash register. Before he arrived, he looked back at Jeff and noticed that his friend was just staring at the coin. He went back to Jeff and asked him, "What's the matter?"

"The coin's too expensive," Jeff replied. "When I was hit by the 'Go Somewhere Beam', as Paula put it, I had no money, and I had no opportunity to get any out of my account, assuming it's still active. In essence, I can't afford the Coin of Silence," he lamented.

Ness smiled, trying to cheer up his friend, and replied, "No problem. I'll buy it for you."

This surprised Jeff. "What? You?"

"Sure," Ness replied cheerfully. "I've got more than enough money to get coins for both of us. This one's on me."

He then went and got a second coin and proceeded to take it to the cashier. He paid for the coins, which set him back five thousand dollars. Once the transaction was made, Jeff looked into Ness's eyes as Ness gave him the coin and said, "I owe you, big time."

Ness smiled once again. "No you don't," he replied. "As stated before, this one's on me." The two then exited the shop and returned to the rest of the party. Now that they were ready, they proceeded towards the closed gate that kept them out of the school.

They arrived at the closed gate and quickly peered through the bars. Good, no one was on guard close to the school. In fact, if anything, the school looked like it was abandoned. "Are you sensing anyone here?" Ness asked Paula, turning to her.

Paula's eyes began to glow as she focused her senses on the school. After a few seconds, her eyes returned to normal and she replied, "No. I'm sensing nothing save for a few rats, a murky area, and the Abominable Snow Bunny."

"That would be a guard post," Giygas interjected. "Our rank and file soldiers often wear clothes and helmets that can cloud a psychic's senses. After Earth's first counterattack in which they used psychics to zero in on Starmen and jam them while they launched their high yield anti-orbital nuclear weapons against our ships so they could not take control of the missiles and veer them off course, or have them be returned to sender. Of course, my people can still sense the wearers and the people they shroud. Assuming my information is accurate, there should be a few guard squads here, as well as the Sanctuary Guardian."

"Maybe we'll luck out and only face a few guards," Jeff suggested, sounding hopeful.

"That would be lucky," Ness agreed. Still, he doubted it. There was no way that Giygas's people would abandon a Sanctuary like that. Still, if Giygas had ordered a diversion of troops and added more to the front lines, then they may have taken them from some already captured Sanctuary locations. He turned to Giygas and asked, "You didn't happen to send anyone away from the Sanctuary, did you?"

Giygas shook his head. "No," he replied plainly. "If I had done so, it would have aroused suspicion of my intentions to defect." He paused before adding. "Let's just say that my relationship with the current leader of my people is not exactly friendly."

Ness's ears perked at hearing this admission. If Giygas was on less than friendly terms with the leader of his people, that could be a potential legitimate reason for his defection, especially if he was as haunted by his battle with Maria or his first battle with Ninten as he claimed. Ness considered easing up on Giygas, but he still wanted more proof of Giygas's good intentions before truly accepting him as an ally. He was still wary, though not quite as suspicious as before. This could still be a clever ruse. After all, they only had Giygas's word that he was on bad terms with the enemy.

Giygas quickly stepped forward and a green energy field surrounded the gate. The gate then proceeded to slide back and the way towards the school was no longer barred. The party then proceeded to make their way through. Inside the school grounds, Paula and Jeff stopped for a moment to look around. Paula stared in wonder at the beautiful campus and the snow-covered trees. Jeff remembered this place fondly, though he had been glad to graduate the eighth grade and return home so he could study with his father and be with his family more. The group made it past the Boarding House and followed the trail to the school itself. The path was not long, and since it was still day, the lack of lights around the trail did not bother the teens. Not that they would have been bothered, three of the teens were psychic, and the one person that was not psychic was armed to the teeth. They all felt confident that they could handle anything that was thrown at them.

The group soon arrived at the school proper and stood out in front of the main entrance to the school building. Giygas turned to the teens and told them, "The Sanctuary is down in the basement. I'm only sensing one guard squad. The squad consists of a Starman, along with two Diva Elves, and a Greater Mook."

Poo scowled at the mention of Diva Elves. They had been present during the Battle of Dalaam. While they had not posed much of a threat to Poo, he had heard that they had inflicted significant casualties on the forces of Dalaam in their initial push to storm the palace. Giygas stepped forward once more and used his psychic powers to open the doors to the interior of the school. The quintet then proceeded to enter and made their way inside the school.

Upon entering the building, the teens and Giygas found themselves inside a small hallway that led to a much longer hallway that led in both directions, left and right. Paula and Giygas stepped forward into the larger hallway and scanned the area, seeing if there were any concealed enemies. The hallway was clear. It seemed as if the enemy had more important things to do than protect the hallway from intruders.

"There are stairwells at both ends of the hall that lead down to the basement," Jeff told them. Now, it was Jeff's turn to lead the way. He turned right and led the group down the hallway and towards the stairwell. He pulled out his Gaia Beam pistol and stood ready to engage any unwary enemies at a moment's notice. Paula soon joined him at the front of the group. After them came Giygas, who was closely followed by Ness. Bringing up the rear, as usual, was Poo. He constantly checked behind them so that they would not be ambushed by an enemy force from behind. The walls around them were covered with schedules and other miscellaneous announcements and ads from the school year. The group paid them no heed as they made their way past since neither Paula, nor Poo, sensed anything sinister emanating from the papers. The group arrived at the stairwell and they saw a set of push open double doors. The group then proceeded to make its way though.

In the stairwell, they were met by two Worthless Protoplasms. These blue entities looked more like cream topping than any worthwhile enemies. They squeaked at the sight of Giygas, who simply walked towards them at a normal pace, not seemingly trying to go out of his way to kill them. They tried to scurry away from the oncoming Giygas, but something was keeping them from moving. They gave small, terrified squeals as Giygas brought his foot down on them, crushing them and reducing them to jelly, blue gel squirting out from beneath Giygas's feet. Giygas lifted his foot up as he continued down the stairwell, leaving a trail of blue footprints as a sign of the unfortunate encounter between Giygas and the Worthless Protoplasms, which had definitely lived up, or rather down, to their names.

The rest of the party then made their way past the remains of the Worthless Protoplasms and proceeded down to the basement. Paula took a look back at the seeming callousness of how Giygas had treated some of his former soldiers. She did not know whether or not this was an indication of whether or not he was truly working alongside them, or if he was still the ruthless alien commander that he had always seemed to be. She glanced over at Ness, who was thinking along the same lines. Still, it was not like they had treated the Worthless Protoplasms any differently when they had faced the creatures during the War Against Giygas. There was a reason why they were referred to as "worthless". The group soon arrived at the doors that led to the basement. Paula could more clearly sense the murky area and found the alien forces that were supposed to be protecting the Sanctuary. Giygas then pushed the doors open and the group headed on through.

Down in the basement, Giygas stormed the basement hallway and turned to face the quartet of guards standing in the middle of the hallway. Turning to face him were the Starman, the Greater Mook, and the two scantily clad Diva Elves. They were dressed in what more closely resembled bikinis, rather than clothing. Their uniforms were green like the leaves on trees. They had no weapons on them, so the Four guessed that the Diva Elves were either psychics or magicians of some sort. The group took one look at the arrival of their master and said questioningly, "Master Giygas?" They then bowed to Giygas. "What brings you here?" one of the Diva Elves asked in a musical voice of inhuman beauty. Giygas merely grinned. Ness and the other members of the Chosen Four then came onto the scene and the group recoiled in shock at the arrival of the human teens.

"Humans!" cried the other Diva Elf in shock at the appearance of their enemy next to their master.

The Starman then focused his senses on the humans and took a step back. "They're psychics!" he cried. "Master Giygas has betrayed us!"

Giygas merely grinned again as he stepped back and powered a PSI Beam Gamma and targeted the Starman. The Starman prepared to fire a PSI Fire attack at Giygas, powering a ball of fire in front of one of his tentacle-like arms, but Giygas unleashed his attack faster than the Starman could power his own. Giygas's green beam of psychic energy lanced out from his hand and skewered the alien. The beam struck the Starman in the head and instantly killed him. The Starman fell over backwards, a large smoking hole in his head. Giygas then waved his hand at the others, as if it were a gun. One of the Diva Elves powered a blast of magical fire and targeted the party, with her primary target being her former master. She unleashed a searing stream of fire towards them, but Ness stepped out and surrounded the party with only a Shield Sigma since he wished to conserve his psychic energy for the later battle. The fire, predictably, splashed harmlessly against the shield causing no damage to the party. Paula then proceeded to take down the Diva Elf by unleashing a blast of PSI Thunder at the female elf. The Diva Elf's skimpy clothing proved to be a rather large liability as Paula's lightning bolt burned a hole in the Diva Elf's chest, piercing her heart. Lightning also arced around and through her body as she fell over, smoke issuing from the hole in her chest. The other two enemy combatants, seeing that they had nothing left to lose unleashed their entire arsenal of psychic and magical attacks at the heroes. Giygas stood in front of the party and intercepted their attacks, so that the rest of the humans would not need to waste any psychic energy in order to face down the enemy. The attacks of the party impacted Giygas's shield, but it showed no signs of strain as it barely flared when it repelled the attacks. The unfortunate enemy force was then caught in a shooting gallery as Jeff, Giygas, and Poo unleashed a hail of gunfire and psychic lightning and fire at the remains of the hapless enemy party. The second Diva Elf suddenly wished that she had invested in some real body armor rather than her current skimpy outfit that was the hallmark of her race, both male and female, as Jeff's Gaia Beam pulses burned several holes into her body. The unclothed Mook fared no better, being fried by Poo's psychic lightning and set ablaze by Giygas's PSI Fire attack. After a few short seconds, the battle was over as the smoking bodies of the two remaining enemies fell to the ground, barely recognizable.

After the battle, Ness could only think of one thing. "This was too easy," he said ominously. The others nodded in agreement, even Giygas.

"Be on guard," Giygas warned. "There should be several more parties on these grounds."

The group carefully made its way past the scene of the battle and made their way down the hall. "The Sanctuary location should be at the end of the hallway," Giygas told them. It was close.

Paula extended her psychic senses to see if she could sense any more guards down the hallway or in the building. To her surprise, she found nothing. She then extended her senses to see if there was anyone else on the entire campus. Again, she sensed nothing. She went over to Ness and the others and said, "As strange as it sounds, it seems as if we're in the clear."

Giygas nodded. "I sense that too. Still, be aware of your surroundings. The others could just be waiting to ambush us. Now that I have spilled the blood of my former soldiers, chances are that the servants of my people will seek revenge. They should now know that I've betrayed them."

The others said nothing. They just paused for a moment to take stock of themselves before they proceeded towards the end of the hallway. After a few steps, the others could now see the glowing swirl of white energy that was the telltale sign of a Sanctuary. They had arrived at their first Sanctuary. Paula, Poo, and Giygas took the lead and the walked towards the Sanctuary and stopped when they were within a few steps. Paula then sensed the arrival of an unknown presence. A voice then echoed throughout the hallway. "Welcome to Your Sanctuary. I have now claimed it as mine. If you want it back, you'll have to fight me. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" the Guardian laughed. Suddenly, the group found a large, bluish-white anthropomorphic monster rabbit standing on its hind legs, with arms. It had two large rodent teeth jutting out from its upper jaw and it looked quite muscular. Its expression was one of rage, hatred, and lust, especially when it caught sight of Paula. "Welcome to _my_ Sanctuary!" he gloated as he generated a snowball in his right hand. "Try and take it from me, if you dare!"

Ness quickly glanced over to Paula and Poo, wondering if this was a psychic or non-psychic attack. Giygas answered the question when he called, "I'll cover you! You just attack that thing!"

Giygas then extended his shield around the entire party and the snowball splattered harmlessly against the shield. It promptly melted into water and ran off of the shield and dripped onto the ground. Jeff was the first to attack by pulling out a Multi Bottle Rocket and aiming it at the rabbit. The Abominable Snow Bunny laughed as Jeff fired the rockets. A multitude of rockets soon streaked towards the rabbit. The Snow Bunny responded by firing a beam of ice from its mouth. The beam of ice swept over the missiles and encased them in blocks of ice. The now frozen missiles fell to the ground and shattered. The rabbit laughed. "Is that all you goons can do?" he mocked.

Paula, however, answered him with a searing blast of PSI Fire at its Omega level. She rightly figured that the Abominable Snow Bunny, being an ice creature, was quite vulnerable to fire. She had decided to test this theory when she unleashed her stream of PSI Fire. The fire poured all over the evil rabbit and engulfed the creature. The creature cried out in pain and rage as it was set ablaze. Still, where many other creatures would have been killed, the Abominable Snow Bunny was not dead yet. He froze his body and encased it in ice, so that when the fire melted the ice, it would generate water, which would extinguish the flames. This worked out quite well for the rabbit, as it managed to extinguish itself. Still, the rabbit had suffered a lot of damage from the attack, and there was more to come.

Ness, knowing that PSI Rockin was not practical in the close confines of the school, decided to merely use his telekinesis to restrain the rabbit, while Paula did the real damage. The rabbit tried to charge the human children, but he found out that he was unable to move due to Ness's telekinesis. He tried to fire an ice beam at the party, but when he powered the beam, Ness mere forced his head to turn so that his beam missed the party entirely. The Abominable Snow Bunny soon realized that he was in desperate straights, being unable to move, and thus, evade the next attack from the rest of the party. And attack they did.

Paula soon unleashed another blast of PSI Fire, this time at its Gamma level since she was backed up by the other members of the party. Giygas unleashed a blast of PSI Fire at its Omega level at the Sanctuary Guardian. In addition to his direct attack, Giygas also sealed the abilities of the Abominable Snow Bunny as well. Poo quickly unleashed a blast of PSI Thunder Omega at the monster, while Jeff added his own weight to the fire with a volley of blasts from his Gaia Beam pistol. The creature writhed with each successive hit. After a few seconds, the Abominable Snow Bunny was set ablaze, with multiple holes in his body, and lightning arcing across him, leaving even more vicious scorch marks. Unable to attack, the Abominable Snow Bunny only lasted a few more seconds before he was reduced to ashes. Ness and the others were victorious. However, this was not the end. The pile of ashes moved as the top of the pile began to fall in on itself. From underneath the pile of ashes emerged a normal Snow Rabbit. Apparently, it seemed as if the rabbit had been transformed into the Abominable Snow Bunny by Giygas's people. The Abominable Snow Bunny's defeat at the hands of the Chosen Four and Giygas had somehow returned the rabbit back to normal. The rabbit shook off the ashes and soot, revealing its white coat.

After the battle, Giygas, Paula, and Poo made their way towards the glowing swirl of white energy. As they approached the swirl of energy, the Snow Rabbit jumped away from the group. Ness and Jeff remained behind, since they had no Sound Stones, and were on guard so that they could intercept any potential attack that might come at Paula and Poo. Ness also focused his gaze on Giygas. Giygas had gone out of his way to protect the party. The Abominable Snow Bunny had been extremely vulnerable to fire based attacks, and Giygas had demonstrated the ability to use PSI Fire, so when he had raised a shield to protect Ness and the others, it was something that he had not had to do in order to defeat the rabbit. Giygas then proceeded to use his telekinesis to lift the freed Snow Rabbit towards an open window and released it out into the wild. While Ness was not free of suspicion, he began to wonder if Paula was actually right about him. His display of compassion towards the rabbit was beginning to show Ness that maybe Giygas really did mean what he said. He then got back to being on watch. He figured that time would tell as to whether or not Giygas was an ally, or an enemy.

Back at the Sanctuary location, once Giygas, Paula, and Poo stepped into the light, memories came swirling back to the surface. For Paula, she heard a special melody but the song that was pervading the background had no words at all. It sounded like it was being played on a music box, or one of those toy grand pianos that young children would often play. Both Poo and Giygas heard similar melodies, though in Giygas's case, he could tell that the melody that he was hearing was a part of the Eight Melodies that Maria used to sing when he was still a child. Giygas could easily make out the words, "_Take a melody_…"

After a few minutes, the party exited the swirl and returned to Jeff and Ness, fully rejuvenated. Upon arriving, Paula went over and asked Ness, "When you got to Your Sanctuaries, did you hear a melody play?"

Ness nodded. Paula smiled. "Good, so it seems as if this is a real Sound Stone."

This conversation did not go unnoticed by Giygas. "You doubted the veracity of my claim and of the stones?"

Paula laughed. "Not me," she responded. "I actually sensed that you were telling the truth. Ness, however, didn't."

Giygas then smiled and replied, "Well, I hope that we can continue to work together to help save your people."

Paula folded her hands across her chest. "I hope so, too," she said sincerely. Ness noticed Giygas smile again, but there was something off about his smile. It seemed as if it were mocking, as if he had just accomplished a mission when Paula told him that she trusted him. Poo simply waited and did not say a word.

Giygas then went over to Ness and the others and asked, "So where do we go, now? There's no way my people will let me get away with this. One of the Sanctuaries has been claimed by you, and they'll likely realize that you had some help from me as well."

"Saturn Valley," Jeff blurted in reply. The others turned to him. "It's a safe haven for us, and I have some unfinished projects there as well. We could use this time to better equip ourselves for the coming battles and make plans on how we'll tackle the other Sanctuaries."

Paula and Poo did not have a problem with Jeff's suggestion. Ness was a little more skeptical, but he kept silent for the time being. He only went over to Jeff and cautioned, "I suggest keeping some of your more important items secret. We don't need Giygas knowing everything you're working on."

Jeff smiled and gave Ness a thumbs up. "Don't worry," he assured Ness. "I'm not letting Giygas in on my greatest secrets and inventions."

Ness smiled as well. Now he knew that he was not the only one who was still concerned about working with Giygas. Still, he knew that Jeff was right. Saturn Valley was the best place to be right now. It was out of the way, and the Mr. Saturns were quite advanced, themselves. With that, he gathered the others to him. Once everyone was huddled together, the party vanished from Winters.

Standing high above Winters, on top of a UFO, a Starman Super used his psychic abilities to look down upon the scene. He had sensed that the Sanctuary at Snow Wood Boarding School had been claimed by the human psychics. This disturbed him, but not as much as the fact that he also sensed Master Giygas with them. And they were not fighting. That only meant one thing. Giygas was now working with the humans. The Starman Deluxe at Mount Itoi had to learn of this. The Starman Super retreated into his Fighter UFO and rocketed away towards Mount Itoi. The Starman Deluxe would soon learn of Giygas's betrayal, and soon, so would Giegue.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

"Say that again!" the Starman Deluxe in charge of Mount Itoi commanded the Starman Super who had just reported back from a routine patrol of the area around the first captured Sanctuary. He was incredulous at the prospect of Giygas betraying his people and troops to side with humans, humans that he had helped to kill.

"I saw it with my own eyes, sir," the Starman Super told the Starman Deluxe at Mount Itoi. He had raised his voice at his commander due to the fact that the commander had seemed to not have believed him the first time. "Giygas was standing with four other humans. Not only that, but the humans he was with were the known psychics, Ness, Paula Polestar, and Poo. The fourth human was confirmed to have been Dr. Andonuts's son, Jeff."

The Starman Deluxe was silent for a moment, putting the tip of one of his tentacle-like arms to the lower part of the helmet of his suit where his chin would be. "I see," he eventually told the Starman Super. "And who else knows about this?" Something in the Starman Deluxe's voice made the question sound suspicious.

"No one, yet, sir," the Starman Super replied cautiously. He was curious not that the Starman Deluxe had asked the question, but in the tone of voice the Starman Deluxe had asked the question. "But I was about to make a call to the main fleet and inform Giegue of his brother's treachery."

"No need to bother yourself with that task," the Starman Deluxe said quickly. "I'll handle it. I want you to continue to spy on Giygas and the others. I need to know if this is real or if we're just jumping the gun."

The Starman Super bowed. "Understood, sir," he replied. He then disappeared from the base. The Starman Deluxe then went into the main control area of the base and approached a console. After punching a few buttons, on the console, he waited a few seconds. The image of a Final Starman, one of the two types of Starmen that were superior even to the mighty Starman Deluxe, appeared on screen. The Starman was clad in the golden uniform of a Starman Super, but had the spikes on the shoulders and helmet of a Starman Deluxe.

"Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha, what is the business of your communication?" the Final Starman asked gruffly. "Giygas told you to maintain radio silence until the main fleet was in position."

"I need to contact Lord Giegue at once," the Starman Deluxe responded indignantly. "It pertains to his brother, Giygas," he added.

That got the Final Starman's attention. "Very well, I'll patch you through."

The Starman Deluxe then waited for the Final Starman to connect him to Giegue. The Starman Deluxe considered how he would break the news to Giegue. He had always known that Giegue was not all that fond of his older brother, but they were still family. The screen soon flashed and the image of Giegue soon appeared. The Starman Deluxe thought that he spotted a particularly beautiful female High Star Elf in the background. "What is it, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha?" Giegue boomed over the comm.

"I call bearing ill tidings about your older brother, Giygas," the Starman Deluxe responded. He waited to see how Giegue would respond. Giegue, however, quickly grew impatient.

"Well, don't keep me in suspense," he roared. "Tell me what happened to my soft brother! I have a schedule to keep, here."

"One of our Starman Supers saw Giygas consorting with the enemy," the Starman Deluxe began. "He was seen in the company of three known powerful psychics and one scientific child genius."

Giegue's expression grew dark. "Who were these psychics that were seen in the company of my brother?" he asked in a more normal tone of voice.

"They are Ness, Paula Polestar, and Prince Poo of Dalaam," the Starman Deluxe replied. "The science genius is Jeffery Andonuts, the son of the renowned Doctor Alfred Andonuts was also seen in their company. The Chosen Four have been reunited. And from all appearances, Giygas is working with them."

The Starman Deluxe saw Giegue seemingly grin. "So he's finally done it," he said, almost as if he were happy. "He's finally betrayed me. I knew he would, one day. He's still too attached to that human whore, Maria. Finally, I'll be able to get him out from under my skin."

The Starman Deluxe stared at Giegue in disbelief. "If you had a feeling that he might betray you, then why did you send him to Earth to attack in the first place?"

"That's for me to know," Giegue snapped. "Remember your position, soldier!"

The Starman Deluxe snapped to attention and said, "I'm sorry, my lord. It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't," Giegue responded. "Since I'm in a good mood right now, I'll let you off the hook with a warning since due to the turn of events, your question was warranted. Now, as to what to do about my traitorous brother, spread the word about his treachery. Tell all of your units down there that he is an enemy. But caution them to not engage Giygas directly unless they know that they can take him out quickly. There's a reason he was in command of the first invasion in the first place. He's the most powerful of us. If he knows that you're coming, he'll wipe you out."

"Understood, my lord," the Starman Deluxe responded.

"Good," Giegue nodded satisfactorily. "Giegue out."

The screen went blank as the communication ended. He then went to inform all of his troops on Earth, and on Luna Base, of Giygas's defection. Still, he wondered if Giegue was not grasping at straws. Despite Giygas not taking part in the direct destruction of the destruction of the Earth's cities, he had been seen leading troops against the human forces, and taking psychics back to base for study, particularly human psychic children. The Starman Deluxe still hoped that Giygas was actually being a double agent and gaining the confidence of the humans so he could either stab them in the back directly, or find out more information about human psychics. But Giegue seemed pretty sure that Giygas was now working with the humans. Until evidence to the contrary was discovered, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha had to believe that Giygas had now betrayed his own people to work with the humans.

On the main flagship of the invading PSI Alien fleet, Giegue sat on a massive, plush bed. Sitting at a stand next to the bed was his lovely companion, and clairvoyant, the High Star Elf, Miridhel. She had silver hair that came down to the middle of her back, along with silver eyes and wore a light sleeping gown that covered only her torso and one inch of her legs. She stared into the crystal ball on the stand and chanted a spell. The globe then began to glow and what looked to be waves appeared in the globe. Giegue soon went over to her and asked, "What do you see?"

She continued to stare into the globe. Eventually, she gave her response. "I see the destruction of several major Earth cities. The cities known as Washington D.C., Tehran, Tel Aviv, York, and Madrid have been destroyed. Of the Earth's military forces, only America, Britain, Israel, Russia, and China are offering any meaningful resistance, with China's forces on the verge of defeat, and us in a stalemate with Russia. We have suffered relatively few casualties in return in the attacks on the cities previously mentioned, but we have lost a Sanctuary in the Snow Wood Boarding School in Winters, as well as the Stonehenge Base not too far away from the school."

"What about Giygas?" he asked.

"Giygas was involved in the loss of the Sanctuary in Snow Wood, and was involved in the defeat of the Abominable Snow Bunny," she answered.

"But has he betrayed me?" Giegue asked, not satisfied with Miridhel's response.

"It's difficult to see," she answered, looking into the crystal once more. "There are many possible futures, with no one future ever truly guaranteed. So far, there are an equal number of possible futures that point to Giygas betraying us, as well as those that point to Giygas remaining loyal and playing Ness and the others. In essence, I don't know. Right now, it could go either way."

Giegue made no attempt to hide his displeasure at that answer. "Please, understand, my lord," Miridhel pleaded, "I am telling you the truth. Would you rather I lie and tell you what you wanted to hear?"

Giegue considered her question for an instant before responding, "No."

"Then what are your orders, my lord?"

Giegue smiled. "Come, join me." Miridhel then rose from her stand and went over to sit next to Giegue and entertain him for the remainder of the day.

Back on Earth, Ness and the rest of the party reappeared in the middle of Saturn Valley. As the party looked around, Ness and the others noted that it had not changed much in the ensuing decades since they had last been there. Upon their appearance, a friendly Mr. Saturn approached and greeted them, saying, "Welcome to Saturn Valley. _Zoom_! Make yourselves at home. _Boing_!" The odd-looking creature looked at Ness more closely for a second before recognizing the boy.

"Ness, is that you? _Boing_," he asked excitedly.

Ness nodded. "Yes, I'm Ness."

Paula, Jeff, and Poo then introduced themselves one at a time. Giygas stayed back for a bit, though, unsure of what to say. He had read countless dossiers on the Mr. Saturns. He knew that they spoke like kindergarteners and wrote in what people of Earth considered to be kindergarten scrawl, but were actually quite intelligent, as well as very advanced technologically. He knew that there were a lot of tools and weapons that they could build here. Giygas eventually stepped forward. The Mr. Saturn looked at him quizzically and asked, "Who are you?"

Giygas did not know whether he wanted to give an answer or not. He did not know just how much the Mr. Saturns knew about him and his people. If they knew who he was, then there was a chance that they would be quite suspicious of him. Still, he had to gain their trust since they were Ness's allies, so he replied honestly, "My name is Giygas."

The shocked expression on the Mr. Saturn's face was all of the indication that he needed. Indeed, they did know him. "Run time! Run time! Everybody run! Universe Cosmic Destroyer Giygas is here!" the Mr. Saturn cried as he fled to the houses in the village to warn everyone of the impending disaster. Giygas was taken aback by the reaction of the Mr. Saturn. He was surprised that they had called him the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. He then remembered that they had helped build the Phase Distorter with Dr. Andonuts, so chances were that they had learned of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer during the last war. That also meant that they only knew Giygas as the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. Giygas shrugged. He decided that it would be best to let Paula and the others do the work of convincing the Mr. Saturns that he was not an enemy. He would only go up to them if they came to him first.

Upon seeing the reaction of the Mr. Saturn to Giygas's appearance, Paula, Jeff, and Poo chased down the fleeing Mr. Saturn and attempted to tell him that Giygas was now an ally. Ness also helped to chase them down, but he was still suspicious of Giygas, a fact that he carried across his face. Paula eventually reached the Mr. Saturn and tried to calm him down. "Don't worry. Giygas is on our side now. He helped us defeat a Sanctuary Guardian and get a part of a melody for our Sound Stones."

The Mr. Saturn did not know anything about the Sound Stones, but the tone of Paula's voice seemed to calm the creature down enough so that he was not frantically screaming that the world was about to end, even though if something was not done quickly, it may very well come to an end.

Eventually, the other Mr. Saturns in the valley came out of their huts and approached the alien newcomer hesitantly. As they approached, though, Giygas made no hostile gestures at all. He stood perfectly still for them. Eventually, one of the Mr. Saturns said, "Welcome to Saturn Valley, Universe Cosmic Destroyer."

Giygas gave an embarrassed smile and said, "Actually, I'm not really the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. I'm what was cast out of Giygas when he became the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. In essence, I am Giygas's soul given a new physical body.

The Mr. Saturns did not seem to understand what he was saying and simply said, "We hope you enjoy Saturn Valley Universe Cosmic Destroyer Giygas," only prompting Giygas to give another embarrassed smile.

"Don't worry about it," Paula said, trying to comfort the alien. "They don't intend to insult you."

"I know," Giygas responded. He had sensed that they had no malevolence in their hearts when they had spoken. He soon scanned to see if there were any humans in the valley. After few seconds, his scans came up negative. Apparently, there was no one left in this valley save for the Mr. Saturns. It seemed as if Apple Kid, Hannah were either dead, which could have happened naturally, since they would have been in their early to mid seventies by this time, or had left at some point in time. Giygas sincerely hoped that if they had not died of natural causes that they were still alive, living in one of the few cities that had not been bombed either from orbit or by a Starman Deluxe. Giygas had not taken a direct part in bombing any of Earth's cities, but that gave him little comfort in the grand scheme of things. He knew what he had to do to accomplish his goals, and he would not be stopped. Still, going against his own people was a difficult thing for him to do. They were, after all, his people. No matter what they had done, that would never change.

Meanwhile, Ness and the others caught up with the Mr. Saturns, the younger of whom recognized Ness from the descriptions of the elders. Some of the elders, however, still remembered Ness from their last meeting decades ago. Ness and the others learned some interesting facts from the Mr. Saturns in the process. First was that the Saturn Valley _had_ fallen under attack, but the defenses that the Mr. Saturns had erected had managed to repulse the advance of the PSI Alien fleet. They had also tapped into the communications channels of the human militaries to learn the state of the war. When they watched the news, Ness learned of the destruction of Washington D.C., Tehran, Baghdad, Tel Aviv, York, and Madrid in the most recent series of attacks on Earth cities. Even worse was the fact that practically all of Eastern, Southern, and Middle Africa had suffered extreme damage due to the excessive bombardment, both by enemy City Smashers and attacks from Starman Deluxes, Ghosts of Starmen, and Starman Warriors. And Western and Northern Africa were faring little better since now they were being targeted. It was the continent that had suffered the heaviest of bombings and attacks, followed closely by Asia, since it had been the second most heavily populated continent in the world, but its countries lacked the technology and infrastructure to adequately defend themselves from attack from the PSI Aliens that the countries in Asia possessed. With the exception of a few major cities and military bases, Europe and North America had suffered the least damage from the various attacks, which fit with the PSI Aliens's plan for exterminating humanity, especially since they did not view human technology as any significant threat to them. They might be thinking twice now, since a joint NATO and Russian ASAT nuclear strike on the orbiting fleet had resulted in the destruction of two thirds of the current wave of the invading fleet, and severe damage to the rest of the surviving wave. Still, that wave had almost immediately been replaced by another wave of ships that were now launching more attacks on cities. Still, there had been some good news. Andrews Air Force Base and Naval Station Norfolk, as well as the Norfolk Naval Shipyard had been recaptured by American military forces, though how long they would remain in human hands was up for debate as the fighting still continued.

After catching up on current events, Ness and the others decided to explore Saturn Valley a little more. The valley was still nice, though there were some noticeable changes. A series of almost human-sized tank drones patrolled the area. The robots had vocalizers and spoke much like the Mr. Saturns. "Greetings, Ness," one of the robots had said as Ness and the others approached. After scanning the humans, the robot said, "No problems," and continued on its patrol. The Mr. Saturns also made sure to give the robots new Identification Friend or Foe data, so that Giygas was considered neutral, but not a friend. The Mr. Saturns did not want their robots to open fire on the PSI Alien, though, like Ness, they were wary of his supposed change of heart.

While Ness and the others went to the center of town to prepare to discuss their next plan, Paula went over to one of the new shops and decided to check out the new merchandise. She found that there were some new additions to the store. For one, the store now sold Bags of Dragonite for about one thousand dollars per bag. While they were very expensive, she decided to buy a few Bags of Dragonite, since they were powerful items that would allow the user to temporarily transform into a dragon and launch a powerful fire attack against all enemies in the area. It would be useful for conserving psychic power for difficult battles later on, or allow one to fight even after he or she had run out of psychic power. It was well worth the cost.

After she had finished her shopping, she returned to the center of town. Ness and the others were quietly waiting for her. She approached Ness and handed him two Bags of Dragonite. She mouthed the words, _You owe me_, with mock gravity as she took her seat next to him. Ness smiled and stared into her eyes. Paula returned Ness's gaze and smile. Giygas could not help but notice the affection that Ness and Paula shared for each other. He also noticed Jeff chuckling, and Poo looking like he was minding his own business. He was quite unconvincing, as he constantly turned back towards Ness and Paula. It seemed as if they had gotten over their earlier argument about Giygas.

Once they were all assembled, Giygas began to speak to them at length. "Okay everyone," he began. "I know that I'm not in charge of your party, nor do I want to be, but if we're going to defeat my people, we'll need a plan."

Everyone nodded. Ness then came out and said, "The plan is to go up to space and hopefully beat the rest of the alien fleet, or allow the world to do so, before it comes in and wipes everything out."

"To do that, though, we'll need more power, since when we faced Giygas, here, we were beaten," Poo said, looking directly at Giygas when he mentioned their previous battle. Ness and the others nodded. They all knew that they were not strong enough to directly confront the alien threat at the moment. But they would be, soon.

"Yes," Giygas agreed, looking down at the ground. "As you stated, our final goal is to go up into space and kick Giegue to the curb, as you humans would say," he added with a smile. "However, as stated before, we will all need more power to face them down, myself included. Because let's face it, it's going to be us against the remnants of my entire species. Now many of them were sacrificed to bring about the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, but there were survivors, just in case the Cosmic Destroyer somehow failed. There are about a thousand or so of us left, and while I'm the strongest unaugmented PSI Alien, most of our forces either have special armor, or other enhancements that increase their abilities. Still, even though I may be the strongest, it's going to be five, with only four of us being psychics, against a thousand."

"Those seem to be pretty poor odds," Jeff commented.

"Yes, they are," Giygas agreed. "And that's before factoring in the countless troops and servants under my people's command. That's why we have to formulate a strategy to win this. And gaining the power of these Sanctuaries is only part of the goal. That will allow us to take on my brother. And he's on the flagship of my people, a massive city-sized ship that holds most of the rest of my people."

"Hold on," Ness interrupted. "Perhaps we should focus on the first part of the plan before going for the finale. After all, we still lack the power to go up there and face off against Giegue.

"Well, we already have the power of one of the Sanctuaries under our control," Giygas noted, focusing on his Sound Stone. Paula and Poo also took out their own Sound Stones and felt power rushing over them.

"Now all we have to do is find the rest of the Sanctuaries," Paula deduced.

Giygas nodded. "And, fortunately, I know for certain where most of them are, and I can easily find the remaining Sanctuary."

"So, where are they?" Poo asked.

"The first was in the Snow Wood Boarding School. We have already claimed that Sanctuary. The second is close by, in the Dusty Dunes Desert, in the Gold Mine. The third Sanctuary is in the ruins of downtown New York City. The fourth is under the Atlantic Ocean, in the Lost City of Atlantis. The fifth is in the Great Pyramid in the Scaraba Desert. The sixth Sanctuary is located in another place where this world and the Faerie World overlap at the true Stonehenge in England. The seventh is in Lava Mountain. I don't know where precisely that is, but hopefully, we'll be able to find it after we find the other Sanctuaries, and the final Sanctuary is somewhere close to Luna Base on your moon. It is also where we are keeping the psychic children that we are using to give psychic power to a new line of robots that we are building on Mount Itoi."

"A new line of robots?" Jeff blurted out, changing the subject.

Giygas nodded ominously. "These robots are much like the Nancys, Kellys, and Juanas that you faced during my invasion at the turn of the millennium. They were far weaker than the robots that are being made now. Most of these robots are not limited to female personas or appearance. They will be fully functional and will be slaved to serve only the PSI Aliens. These robots are a hedge in case the Starmen ever go rogue."

The information about the new robots in development interested the party, but they were now more interested in finding out more about the Sanctuaries, especially since some of them seemed to be rather difficult to find. Ness was beginning to realize that whether he liked it or not, they all needed Giygas's help. Not only had he provided them with the Sound Stones, but he was the only one who knew about these new Sanctuaries that would activate these stones. Without him, they could have wandered the entire world before finding these Sanctuaries.

Ness then said, "This is very useful information, Giygas, but could we get back to the Sanctuaries?" His tone was much more respectful than it had been in the past.

"Certainly," Giygas replied, giving a curt nod of his head. "I don't know who the Guardians of the Sanctuaries are except for those who we have had direct contact with. For instance, I don't know the Guardians of the Sanctuaries in the Gold Mine in the Dusty Dunes Desert, the New York City ruins, or the Great Pyramid in Scaraba. However, I do know the Guardians of the Sanctuaries in Atlantis, in the Faerie World at Stonehenge, Lava Mountain, and on the moon. The Guardian of Atlantis is King Chimeron, a chimera with a human head, but a dragon's torso and a shark's tail. He is armed with a powerful lance that can shoot blasts of magical energy capable of penetrating normal and psychic shielding and is capable of swimming at high speed. His people, who are merely mermen and mermaids, also serve the PSI Aliens. They patrol the waters on our behalf, sinking seafaring Earth vessels. The Guardians of the Faerie World Sanctuary are the new King of the Fae and his consort. They usurped the positions from the previous king and queen, Oberon and Titania, and had the Faerie people declare their allegiance to us and serve us when my people came to Earth decades ago. They are magical creatures, just like King Chimeron and his merpeople. The Guardian of Lava Mountain is known as the Carbon Dog. I have a feeling that you've faced him before since he seems to have healed from an injury that he sustained several decades ago."

The others nodded at Giygas's supposition. "You've got that right," Ness said, remembering the party's last battle against the Diamond Dog. "He was a tough opponent as well, and could transform into the Diamond Dog."

"Good," Giygas stated plainly. "So I won't have to tell you what he can do when we face him." Giygas then continued, "And finally, for the Moon Sanctuary Boss, his name is Phanzo. He is an old and evil creature that was worshipped by several races as a dark god of destruction and was considered to be nigh unkillable. He was sealed by a psychic race inside a moon until we freed him and helped him get revenge. He has worked for us ever since. He is particularly dangerous since he can phase into and out of reality at a moment's notice. With that power, he can avoid almost any direct attack, be it physical, energy, or psychic. Only telepathy works on him while he's phased, either that or if you phase yourselves in the process." That seemed to unnerve the psychics on the team, which was only compounded by the fact that Giygas was seemingly telling them that Phanzo was dangerous, even for him to face."

Jeff then raised his hand in question, "I'm just wondering, here. Do we have to tackle the Sanctuaries in any particular order?" Jeff did not like the potential prospect of having to face Phanzo first.

Giygas shook his head. "No, you don't. If we were having this conversation on the moon, we could start searching for that Sanctuary at this very moment. Still, I presented the various Sanctuaries in the order that would currently be the most convenient for us and save us the most time. This way, we won't waste too much time searching for each Sanctuary. We can just go from one Sanctuary to the next, and so on."

"Ah," Jeff replied nodding.

"Any more questions?" Giygas asked, peering around at the others. Paula raised her hand. "What is it?"

"Giygas, how many of these Sanctuaries, besides the Atlantis, the Faerie World, and the moon, are likely to have a lot of your people's forces protecting them?" she asked.

"That's a good question," he said approvingly. "As of yet, we know of all of the Sanctuaries, but we don't have a lot of troops at all of them, since we need a large number of our forces to protect Mount Itoi and Luna Base, and to carry out attacks on various cities around the world. Most of the Starmen are bogged down facing off against human military forces and capturing or killing any psychics they come across. Save for animated creatures and items, we don't have much of a presence in the Scaraba Great Pyramid or in the Dusty Dunes Gold Mine. Lava Mountain is relatively barren of our soldiers, too, but you can count on facing a number of powerful fire sprites and other fire-based enemies. As for the other bases, we do have a presence down in Atlantis, but we mostly leave the Faeries alone. You may find a token Starman Deluxe as an official envoy to the people of the Faerie World, but that should be all unless things change in the near future."

"I see," Paula replied, already beginning to formulate a strategy and prepare for the upcoming battles.

"Is there anything else you need to know?" Giygas asked.

"When can we get started?" Poo asked in reply.

"Right now, if you want," Giygas answered.

The party smiled. "Then let's go," Ness said. He immediately rose from the ground and went towards the exit of the valley. He was about to go to the others when Jeff came up to him and said, "I heard that this next Sanctuary shouldn't be too much of a hassle, should it?"

"Not if Giygas is right about where his people are stationed," Ness replied.

"Given that, I'd like to remain behind and work on a project of mine," Jeff told him. "After all, you shouldn't have much difficulty in the Gold Mine in Dusty Dunes."

"No, we shouldn't," Ness agreed.

"My project is another Sky Runner," Jeff added. "With it, we should be able to reach New York and Scaraba in relatively good time," he added.

Ness smiled kindly at Jeff. "Don't worry about it," he told his friend. "We should be okay in Dusty Dunes." Ness then went to leave with the rest of the party. He then looked back and said, "Hey, good luck on your project." He then waved at Jeff. Jeff returned the wave and Ness then made ready to leave.

One of the Mr. Saturns then bade Ness a good journey. With that, Ness teleported the party to the remains of Threed.

Just as Ness and his party had left, two Fighter UFOs approached and began to spray fire down into the valley. Immediately, the guardian robot tanks rolled out and targeted the Fighter UFOs. They powered their weapons and unleashed bursts of scarlet energy pulses, similar to Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol but at a much higher level of power. The bolts of energy burned through the metal hulls of the ships and emerged from the other side. The two ships then exploded in midair, their fuel tanks having been punctured by the laser blasts. The fiery wrecks crashed down to the Earth, where they hit and crumpled into a mass of debris. Jeff winced. There was nothing worth salvaging there. With that, Jeff and the Mr. Saturn went into the lab that had once belonged to Apple Kid and they began to work on a new Sky Runner.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

Ness and the party reappeared in the middle of a burned out Threed. Glancing around the ruined city, they saw the wreckage of buildings lining the streets and rubble covering the now impassable to vehicles streets. Ness and Paula gasped in horror at the sight. Poo simply looked down at the ground and offered a silent prayer for the people who were present in the town upon its destruction.

"Threed was one of the first cities destroyed," Giygas explained. "It was attacked three years ago, shortly after the Threed Air Base self-destructed. Twoson met a similar fate before the vanguard fleet was destroyed. Afterwards, it was not until a week or so ago until my people launched a new attack in earnest. That was when Fourside was destroyed, along with a large number of other Earth cities. Entire countries had been destroyed in less than a day," Giygas lamented. "Even now, the bombardment continues."

"So, why haven't more cities in North America and Europe been targeted?" Paula asked. "The U.S. and some European countries are some of the most advanced and powerful countries in the world. And from what we've heard on the news, they're the only ones offering any real resistance in terms of both normal military power and in psychics."

"Because as you must have surmised by now, the goal of my people is humanity's extermination, not conquest. There is no need to target the less densely populated areas of the planet. My people simply scanned the most heavily populated continents and countries of your world and attacked them first. It was an oversight on my people's part, since we may have been able to find more collaborators among what you call the Third World nations than we have among the more technologically advanced nations. Most of the collaborators that came from the more advanced countries were convicts that offered their services in exchange for their lives and money, mostly, and some special pleasures for a few of the more perverted ones." Giygas did not hide his disgust of the perverted collaborators. "Of course, the collaborators were immediately sent to the front lines to be bullet sponges and mere cannon fodder troops. I will admit that I am partly to blame for that." The teens figured that Giygas's wink meant that he must have figured that there would be more collaborators among the less technologically developed nations than among the more advanced nations, so he decided to take them out first so the rest of the nations of Earth would more easily be able to unite and face their common foe. The fact that Russia was also in relatively in good condition meant that Giygas must have known who the major nuclear superpowers of the world were. He was giving the Earth a fighting chance against the PSI Alien assault while not letting on the fact that he was trying to help out the Earth. And the fact that the collaborators were being used as front line cannon fodder meant that they were immediately being slaughtered by the human military forces, making other potential collaborators think twice before selling their souls to the PSI Aliens. And all the while, the PSI Aliens must have been oblivious to Giygas's true intentions, merely thinking that he viewed the humans as so worthless that their only use was to die so that the Starmen could launch their psychic attacks or raise their defenses over the rest of the worthwhile soldiers of the PSI Aliens while the human collaborators were slaughtered in droves by their own people.

Ness and Paula unloaded their collapsible bikes and mounted them, proceeding to ride through the rest of the ruins of Threed, followed closely by Poo and Giygas. It did not take long for them to cycle to the outskirts of the ruined city. Paula kept her telepathic senses open for any signs of Starmen or other PSI Alien troops. So far, there were no enemy soldiers sifting through the wreckage, searching for any potential survivors, or refugees trying to make shelters in the one place that the PSI Aliens would not likely search for them. Paula could sense several people building a small collection of huts in the northern part of Threed that would likely suffice for their new home until the war ended, or they were destroyed by the PSI Aliens. It did not take long for the party to arrive at the tunnel that took them from Threed to the Dusty Dunes Desert. The group merely pushed forward and went into the desert.

After a few minutes, the party emerged from the tunnel and entered the desert. The teens were met with a wall of heat upon emerging in the desert. The sun's rays were intense and were beating down upon the party. Giygas had no problems at all with the strong sunlight of the desert. The same could not be said for Ness, Paula, or Poo. So far, Ness and Paula were in a better position than Poo due to their lighter clothing, but even Paula wanted to find that drugstore as quickly as possible so she could buy a canteen and fill it with water, along with some bottled water as well. They also had to be very careful not to get sunstroke from being out in the desert sun for too long. That was where the water would come in handy. Poo's heavier robe made the heat even more uncomfortable for him than it was for the others, though he did show it in the slightest.

The road that they traveled on was surrounded by rocks and cliffs to either side of them. Ness and the other humans were quick to constantly check up on their conditions. Poo decided that the best way for him to keep cool was to use a weak PSI Freeze on himself. Upon using the technique, he had generated his own air conditioning. Paula, noticing how effective Poo's tactic was for him, decided to do the same, though she did not want to have to keep this up for too long since she also knew that if they faced any enemies in the desert that she would likely have to use her psychic energy to ward off the enemies before they came into melee range. Even with her recent acquisition of a black belt, she would prefer to engage her enemies at a distance since that was what she was the deadliest.

After cycling for a few more minutes, the party eventually found the drugstore that they had remembered seeing out in the desert on their first trip through the desert three years ago. They quickly rode up to the front steps of the store and dismounted their bikes. Giygas kept an eye on Ness and Paula's bikes while the humans went inside to buy some water. Upon entering, Paula immediately went into one of the restrooms so she could change her shirt. Despite her polo shirt being sleeveless, she was still sweltering in the desert heat. While Paula was changing her shirt, Ness and Poo were buying bottled water and canteens for the rest of the party. They made sure to get some for Jeff since, even though he was not there with them right now, he would be joining them in the Scaraba Great Pyramid. Ness also bought some Refreshing Herbs, just in case any desert enemies managed to poison them or they suffered from sunstroke along the way. Poo did the same, buying three such herbs for himself. Soon, Paula made her way out of the restroom now dressed in a sleeveless pink t-shirt and she proceeded to buy some Refreshing Herbs for herself as well. The group then went to the cash register and bought their merchandise. Once they were finished they exited the store.

Upon leaving the store, Ness and Paula got on their bikes and proceeded cycle down the long road, with Poo and Giygas following close behind. During the journey, Paula felt much more comfortable in her looser t-shirt and felt as if she could afford to conserve her psychic energy for the dungeon that they were going to enter at the end of this trip. It also freed her to keep her senses open for any PSI Aliens or any other desert enemies that might be desperate enough to try psychic human for their next meal. So far, though, she sensed nothing. That changed fairly quickly when a psychic presence came from over the horizon. She sensed that it was a Starman, flying in a Fighter UFO.

"Heads up, people," she called out. "We've got incoming!"

Sure enough, almost as she had finished her warning, the UFO appeared high in the sky over the party. It looked to be the size of a dime to the eyes of Ness and the others, but they knew that in reality, it was larger than a normal Earth jet fighter plane. Giygas was the first to react to the presence of the UFO. He raised a shield over the entire party as the UFO fired down several purple blobs of plasma. Each blob of plasma splashed harmlessly against Giygas's shield, causing it to flare for an instant each time it was struck. With just one enemy to deal with, Ness did not want to waste any of his psychic energy taking down that craft with PSI Rockin, even though Ness's psychic attack had the range to take it down. Starstorm was also an option, but Poo had even more limited psychic reserves than Ness, so he did not want to risk using Starstorm until he had no other choice. However, it was also too high up for Paula or Poo's PSI Thunder and PSI Freeze to score a reliable hit, especially if the craft was insulated. They did not want to waste any psychic energy targeting a craft that was as high as the UFO was, especially if it was as evasive as it was likely to be. Besides, the party knew that Giygas's shield would hold out until the enemy UFO's plasma battery ran dry. They could just wait out the enemy craft.

The UFO continued to rain down plasma bolts from high above as the party continued to travel along the road through the desert. Many of the bolts hit wide of their mark, scorching the desert sand next to the road, turning it into glass. Others merely hit the rocks lining the road, which served to spray debris onto the road, which Ness and Paula had to maneuver around. Poo merely jumped over the debris, while Giygas floated over the road. The few blasts that managed to find their mark merely splashed against Giygas's impenetrable shield. However, the UFO pilot was not about to give up.

The UFO pilot soon decided to try a new tactic. He fired bolts of plasma in front of the party, trying to make the road impassable to bikes or other vehicles. Each bolt of plasma had the energy equivalent in power to the detonation of an anti-tank missile, so each strike managed to gouge pretty sizeable holes into the road in front of Ness and Paula. The explosions also threw up massive dust clouds, so it would also be difficult for Ness and the others to see while they were traveling though the clouds. The UFO pilot's hope was that they would fall into one of the holes and crash. He could then focus his fire on the hole and pray that one of his bolts managed to take out Ness and the others. And if he managed to get that traitor Giygas in the process, so much the better. Giygas, however, was getting wise to the UFO pilot's tactics and muttered, "The heck with this." He then raised his hand and pointed it at the UFO. A green pulse of energy leapt forth from Giygas's hand and streaked towards the flying saucer. The pulse traveled at close to the speed of light, so there was no way for the craft to dodge Giygas's attack once he unleashed it upon the saucer. The green pulse of energy struck the flying saucer and burned through the hull of the ship, destroying the cannon protruding from the belly of the craft, emerging from the top, and continuing on towards outer space until the blast dissipated. The pulse also managed to graze the fuel tank of the Fighter UFO and the craft erupted into a fiery blaze, as if fireworks had just gone off. The flaming wreck soon fell from the sky, trailing smoke and flame. Ness tracked its fall until it crashed a ways off in the desert. Upon the explosion, Paula tried to ascertain whether or not the Starman that had been piloting the craft had managed to teleport out of the doomed craft or not. She could not sense him anywhere close by, though that meant little if the range of the Starman's teleportation allowed him to travel to other cities. Since she could not sense him in the desert, she figured that whether or not he was alive or dead did not matter at the moment. His current threat had been neutralized. With that, the party continued on its way to the Gold Mine, and the next Sanctuary.

The rest of the trek was free of any real incidents. Since Fourside was had suffered the same fate as Twoson and Threed, the route that the party was taking was free of traffic of any sort. The only enemy now that the group had to face was the intense heat of the desert. The bottles of water were quite refreshing and were instrumental in keeping them from getting sunstroke.

After a couple of hours of cycling, the group finally made it to the tunnel that led them to Fourside. However, the tunnel was not their goal, merely an indicator marker. The goal of the teens was the Gold Mine that was inside the desert itself. They took a left as they approached the tunnel and found an opening in the rocks on the side of the road. Paula extended her telepathic senses and found that several creatures were present, and that they were being influenced by the evil of the PSI Aliens. A large, green caterpillar-like enemy called a Criminal Caterpillar and four Smilin' Spheres, four tan spheres with lips pasted into a smile appeared. Ness and the others remembered these enemies from his last journey into the desert. All of these enemies had powerful psychic attacks, and the Smilin' Spheres exploded upon defeat. This meant that Ness and the others would have to keep them at a distance. But it also allowed them to be taken care of with one fell swoop, since they were positioned in a tight formation.

Giygas stepped forward and raised a shield over the party. His shield would be able to reflect any attack, normal or psychic, back at the attacker. The Criminal Caterpillar and the Smilin' Spheres began the engagement by launching blasts of PSI Fire, Alpha for the Criminal Caterpillar, and Beta for the Smilin' Spheres, at the party. The blasts of fire splashed harmlessly against Giygas's shield and they were immediately reflected back at the attackers. The Smilin' Spheres were struck by their fire attacks and they immediately went critical. The quartet of Smilin' Spheres then exploded in unison while they were still surrounding the Criminal Caterpillar. The explosion completely engulfed the Criminal Caterpillar and by the time the blast cloud had dissipated, all that was left was a smoking crater. With the threat of the Criminal Caterpillar and the Smilin' Spheres out of the way, the party continued on its way towards the Gold Mine.

Not long before arriving at the mining site, the party ran into a pack of four Desert Wolves. These were grayish-brown wolves that could poison an enemy with their bite. Their poisonous nature meant that they were obviously under the influence, or outright control, of the PSI Aliens, and were likely modified as well. The wolves charged at the group as soon as they caught sight of the quartet. Not wanting to engage in a protracted battle, Ness pushed his hand out and unleashed a wall of telekinetic energy at the wolves. The telekinetic wall slammed into the wolves and sent them flying backwards. The wolves flew through the air and landed in the soft sand ten yards away from their launch point. Ness then casually grabbed his bat and approached the wolves. Knowing that this was a meal that was more than capable of defending himself, as well as having the influence of the PSI Aliens neutralized by Ness's attack, the now normal wolves decided to search for a meal elsewhere and fled the approaching boy. As soon as the wolves fled, Ness relaxed and he put away his bat, happy that he did not have to hurt the wolves.

The party soon arrived at the abandoned Gold Mine. There was a shack next to the gully that housed the entrance to the underground mine. Paula, Poo, and Giygas could feel the power emanating from the Sanctuary in the mine beneath. They also sensed a number of subterranean enemies as well. Giygas looked back up quickly, a motion that was noticed by Ness, who asked, "What is it?"

Giygas paused for a bit before giving his response, "A complication."

"What's the complication?"

"We have to fight through eight Guardians down in the mine before we can find the Sanctuary and fight the Sanctuary Guardian," Giygas replied. "It appears as if my people put some security measures in place after they found the Sanctuary and neglected to tell me."

"Or they figured out that you betrayed them," Poo suggested.

Giygas did not disagree with Poo's assessment. "Regardless of why the mine is more heavily protected now, we still have to go in there and take down those Guardians."

"This won't be anything new for us," Ness stated confidently.

"Don't be too cocky," Giygas warned. "We know all about your War Against Giygas and the hurdles you had to overcome in order to defeat the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. My people will have taken precautions."

"Then we'd better get moving," Ness urged, "before your people know that you've come to this place and are helping us." Ness was not entirely trusting of Giygas just yet, but Giygas was showing himself to be helpful and had not shown any signs of deception yet. And Ness had a feeling that with Giygas by their side, that they would be able to tackle this dungeon with little difficulty. The party paused for a moment to check on their inventory and make sure that they had enough Refreshing Herbs to go around to cure themselves of poisoning should any of the enemies manage to poison them. They wished to refrain from using healing PSI until they absolutely had no choice. Once they had taken stock of themselves, they proceeded down into the gully that housed the entrance to the mine. Once they arrived at the entrance to the mine, the group headed on in.

The interior of the mine was quite familiar to the humans of the party, remembering it from their first time through the mine three years ago. They quickly recognized the path in front of them. The cave was not all that tall or wide, but it sufficed to allow the group to walk abreast without feeling too cramped. Ness glanced over at Paula and asked, "So, do you know where this first Guardian is?"

Paula nodded. "Straight ahead. It should be near the ladder that took us to the first Guardian Digger three years ago, assuming the layout of the mine is the same as it was before."

Ness and the others followed Paula's lead as she proceeded down the pathway. Not too far down the path, they found a small fork in the path. They kept moving forward, as per Paula's instructions. Not far ahead, their path was blocked by a Gigantic Ant. This ant-like enemy had the colorings of a Yellow Jacket wasp, though it looked more reminiscent of an ant in its body type. It was also quite large, being nearly as tall as Paula when standing on its hind legs, who was nearly a match for Ness in height. However, his power, while imposing when the group had first entered the Gold Mine three years ago, was nothing they had not seen before. The Gigantic Ant quickly charged the group to begin his assault. Giygas stepped out in front of the group to stop the Ant's charge. He immediately powered a snowflake of PSI Freeze in his right hand and unleashed it at the Gigantic Ant. The girth of the Ant made it hard for Giygas to miss with this snowflake. The snowflake of psychic energy struck the Gigantic Ant and encased him in a block of ice, which surprised Paula since PSI Freeze had not seemed to freeze the Gigantic Ant when they had passed through the mine three years ago. After the battle, Giygas motioned for the others to pass, which they did, saying, "After you."

The group soon arrived at the ladder and found a large, golden coin the size of Ness's fist coin hovering close to the ladder. The coin seemed to notice the party approaching and a low, gruff male voice greeted them, saying, "Welcome to my mine. I'm the first Guardian Coin of the mine. There are eight of us that you must face before we reveal the Sanctuary to you." It then noticed Giygas standing in back of the heroes. It recoiled and stammered, "M...M…M…Master Giygas!" The coin floated backwards a few feet before launching a blast of what looked to be PSI Thunder at Giygas, making sure to avoid Ness and the others. It must have known that one of them was wearing a Franklin Badge. Giygas stuck out his hand and caught the bolt of lightning. The lightning formed a ball in his hand, which Giygas absorbed into his body. "Traitors must die," the coin spat towards Giygas.

Giygas then gave a grin. "Then kill me," he retorted cockily.

Before the coin could launch another attack or call for help, Giygas extended his left hand and powered a green ball of PSI Special. The emerald ball of psychic energy grew in size until it was the size of a grapefruit. Giygas then unleashed the ball of psychic energy at the animated coin. The Guardian Coin raised a PSI Shield Beta over itself, but that shield would be useless in blocking Giygas's attack. Giygas's attack struck the shield, causing it to flare for an instant, before it pushed on through and struck the Coin, where it exploded and engulfed the coin in an emerald field of psychic energy, similar to Ness's PSI Rockin. The field, however, only grew to the size of a small boulder, though it was easily enough to engulf a human, or in this case, an animated gold coin. After the field of energy dissipated, only dust remained. Giygas could feel the psychic presence vanish as his globe of PSI Special dissipated.

"One down, seven to go," Giygas commented nonchalantly.

Ness and the humans took turns staring at each other. Paula was not the only one who knew that the coin had raised a psychic counter shield to protect itself against Giygas's attack. And the counter shield did absolutely nothing to stop Giygas's attack, at all. At this time, all three humans offered silent prayers, praying that Giygas was indeed on their side. For if he was an enemy, then they were in a lot of trouble since he was more than capable of defeating them if he so desired.

Giygas noticed that they were standing still and he called out to them, "Hey, what are you waiting for? We've got another Guardian Coin to destroy below us." He pointed to the ladder. "The Coins seem to be vulnerable to elemental PSI, but resistant to non-elemental PSI such as Starstorm and Special," he informed them.

"You certainly had no trouble taking out that Coin," Ness noted.

"That's because I'm a lot more powerful than those Coins," Giygas replied. "Those Coins are no stronger than a Guardian Digger as well, so we shouldn't have too much trouble against them."

He and Paula then led the way down the ladder where they expected to face a second Guardian Coin. The group made their way down the ladder, but they encountered no Guardian Coins. Instead, they were met by a quartet of Noose Men, enemies that seemed to be made out of coiled rope that loosely formed the shape of a man. The group instantly remembered these enemies, and knew that they were vulnerable to PSI Fire. Paula took the lead this time, extending her hand and unleashing a vicious stream of PSI Fire. The cone of flame expanded as it approached the Noose Men, and Paula swept the cone so that it would engulf all of the animated pieces of rope. The Noose Men were set ablaze by the cone of fire. Still, they charged towards the party, hoping to inflict some damage before their impending destruction. However, their charge would come to a swift halt as parts of their rope bodies burned to ashes, causing them to fall over. Eventually, the psychic fire consumed the remains of the Noose Men, leaving nothing but ashes. The group then made their way past the ashes of the Noose Men and approached a corner that led into a small alcove. Paula turned back and nodded, indicating that another Guardian Coin was in this alcove. Poo quickly went to the front to join Paula. He quickly peered around the corner and found the Guardian Coin, and several Thirsty Coil Snakes, large pink snakes that contained deadly venom.

Paula and Poo quickly emerged from their cover and fired two blasts of PSI Thunder at the Guardian Coin, wanting to ensure that they could hit it without the coin retaliating. The blasts of PSI Thunder struck the coin and scorched it, lightning arcing across the shiny surface of the coin. The Thirsty Coil Snakes then came at the two psychic teens after the Guardian Coin had fallen to the floor. One of the snakes lunged at Paula, but she managed to grab its throat and toss it away, and blast it with PSI Fire, causing it to squeal and flee the scene. Poo drew out his blade and sliced one of the snakes that lunged at him in half, albeit non-lethally. He then kicked the injured, but still living snake, away. The snake then fled the scene as well, and Poo did not give chase. The other Thirsty Coil Snakes, however, had managed to reach Paula and Poo and bit down on their arms. Paula cried out as the snake bit her on her left arm. She flailed her arm, trying to get the snake off of her. Seeing that she was having little success, she decided to power a PSI Thunder attack using her left arm as the focus. The electric attack shocked the snake and it let go, falling to the ground. Poo also quickly dealt with his last snake, but not before being bitten. He also felt the venom of the snake coursing through his body, as did Paula with hers.

After the battle, Poo used PSI Lifeup to heal his and Paula's injuries. He was about to use PSI Healing to cure Paula of her poison when she held her hand out. "No," she insisted. "We have to conserve our psychic energy." She then pulled out a Refreshing Herb and ate it. The herb immediately cured her of her poisoning. Poo also took out one of his Refreshing Herbs and ate it, curing himself as well. The two soon noticed a gift box in the corner of the alcove. Paula went over and opened the box. Inside the box was a PSI Caramel. Paula quickly took the PSI Caramel and gave it to Poo, who ate it. He had expended more psychic energy than Paula and, thus, it would be more useful for him than for her. Before leaving, though, Paula returned to the fallen Guardian Coin and blasted it with a blast of PSI Fire, just to make sure that it was destroyed. The blast of PSI Fire melted the coin until it was nothing more than a pile of liquid gold.

After they had cured themselves, looted all of the treasure that they could from the alcove, and melted the Guardian Coin, the two teens returned to Ness and Giygas. Paula then gave her brief report. "We've beaten the second Guardian Coin."

"Good," Giygas said. "Now we can move onto the next one."

With that, the group went over to the next ladder on the other side of the opening of the alcove and proceeded to climb the ladder. At the top of the ladder they emerged back on the main floor of the mine. The path stretched out ahead of them. Paula took the lead again, extending her telepathic senses to see if there were any dangerous enemies lurking about. Surprisingly, there were none. As such, the group rushed down the pathway, scanning for the next Guardian Coin. Eventually, the path branched off to the right. Remembering the layout of the mine, the group took the right path and headed down the next corridor. The path soon wound around and went the opposite direction. Along the way, a Mad Duck, a cartoonish-looking duck stepped out and attacked. However, the party quickly sensed the duck, and felled the creature with a non-lethal burst of PSI Thunder, rendering the duck unconscious, but also returning the duck to normal. The group then continued on to find another gift box. Ness approached the gift box and opened it. Inside the box was a Big Bottle Rocket. Ness and the others present did not have the training to use this weapon effectively, but he knew that Jeff did, so he held onto it for Jeff. After taking the Bottle Rocket, the group continued on with their journey. They followed the barren pathway all the way until they came to a second path with an opening in the wall. They quickly followed the path and found a gathering of Exit Mice. The mice greeted Ness and he took a moment so that he and the others could rest in relative safety. Once the rest stop was finished, Ness and the others then continued running along the path towards their next encounter with the Guardian Coins. They followed the path all the way to the end where it took a right. Paula and Giygas could feel that they were close to a duo of Guardian Coins and they took the lead now. The party followed the path all the way to the very end, which was surprisingly devoid of enemies.

At the end of the path, the group encountered two more Guardian Coins. The coins turned to face them and fired bolts of PSI Thunder Omega at the party. Apparently, these coins had not gotten the memo that Ness had a Franklin Badge. Paula and Giygas hugged the sides of the cave wall as the lightning bolts passed by them and streaked towards Ness. Ness stood perfectly still and let the lightning attacks hit him. A familiar metallic clang rang out as the lightning bolts hit Ness and were reflected back at the Guardian Coins. Their own lightning bolts struck them and scorched them, electricity arcing all over their surfaces and scorching them. Paula and Giygas then added their own PSI Thunder attacks to the coins' own and in a few short seconds, the third and fourth Guardian Coins were nothing but dust. Seeing that there was nothing worth looting in this section of the mine, the group backtracked the way they came and returned to the gathering of Exit Mice. The group sensed another two Guardian Coins west of the gathering of Exit Mice. The group made their way towards the western path and followed the short path and soon came upon another pair of Guardian Coins.

These Guardian Coins, however, were ready for Ness and the others. When they saw Ness and the others coming, they immediately opened fire with blasts of PSI Fire. The blasts of flame lashed out at the heroes and covered them. Only their psychic abilities prevented them from catching fire and being burnt to a crisp. Giygas, however, did not suffer any damage, for his shield was easily able to absorb the flames without difficulty. Ness and the human psychics, however, retreated a few steps. Again, it was Paula's time to shine once more. She powered a blast of PSI Torrent and unleashed a wave of water-based psychic energy at the coins. The torrent of water immediately extinguished the flames that the two coins were unleashing upon the heroes and the enclosed area meant that there was no way for the coins to avoid the attack. The water hit them with the force of a tidal wave and smashed them to the ground. The rush of water then proceeded to slam them into the wall. Once the water receded, the coins fell to the ground. To ensure that they never rose again, Paula fired a stream of PSI Thunder at each coin. The lightning burned each coin and destroyed it, reducing the coins to burnt out husks of what they used to be. Before departing to face the final pair of Guardian Coins, Paula went over to the gift box in the corner and opened it. Inside, she found a PSI Caramel. Since she had been expending a great deal of psychic energy, she figured that she was due for a psychic pick-me-up. She unwrapped the PSI Caramel and ate it, almost immediately feeling psychic energy flow back into her body. Without a word, the party then returned to the gathering of Exit Mice. Once there, they proceeded to plot their course north towards the final pair of Guardian Coins. The group then made its way north.

It did not take long for the psychics to find the last pair of Guardian Coins. They were at the end of the path straight ahead, and they had no protection to speak of. Not bothering to let the coins get a first strike in against the party, Giygas took point and unleashed a vicious blast of PSI Thunder Omega at the Guardian Coins. The coins never stood a chance. Before they could even react to the presence of Giygas and the humans, Giygas's psychic lightning struck them down, reducing them to ashes. Once the coins were destroyed, the psychics felt a great change in the psychic energy around them. They could feel the true energy of a Sanctuary coming from the northeast corner of the mine.

"I feel it," Paula proclaimed. "The Sanctuary is in the northeast corner of the mine."

"It's protected by a Guardian that…oh my," Giygas started to say, then stopping in surprise.

"What is it?" Poo asked.

"The Sanctuary Guardian is a fusion of the eight Guardian Coins," he replied. "It calls itself the Pieces of Eight."

"Then we can bet that it's at least eight times as powerful as any of these individual coins were," Ness mused.

"Yes, we can," Giygas confirmed. "And it's likely a lot more powerful than that," he added.

"No use worrying about that at this point," Ness declared. "Let's just go and take down this boss as quickly as possible."

The others nodded and they headed off to search for the Sanctuary Guardian. The party headed west once more until they came to a fork in the path. They turned right and followed the path along the mine's wall. This path, however, was occupied with several enemies, a Gigantic Ant and several Noose Men among them. The Gigantic Ant and Noose Men noticed the party walking towards them and the Noose Men quickly charged towards the teens and Giygas. The Gigantic Ant was a little smarter. The Gigantic Ant used Paralysis Alpha on Ness and froze him in his tracks. Ness then fell to the floor, unable to feel his legs. Try as he might, Ness was unable to move or launch an attack, save for PSI Rockin, which would be extremely dangerous in the cramped confines of the mine. Meanwhile, Paula had lined up the Noose Men in her sights and she used PSI Fire on the enemy ropes. The Noose Men were instantly set ablaze. They took a few more steps forward until the fires consumed them enough that they were unable to walk and they fell over. After a few more seconds, the Noose Men were nothing but ash. The Gigantic Ant, however, took this opportunity to call for help. Another Gigantic Ant answered the call and appeared from around the corner. He entered the battle and began his involvement in the battle by paralyzing Poo. This left Giygas, who was immune to their psychic attacks, and Paula. Giygas, however, seemed content to watch the battle unfold and seemed to offer no assistance at this time at all. Paula quickly decided that her best bet was to use the same strategy that worked on these enemies three years ago, PSI Freeze Gamma. A snowflake appeared in front of Paula and she unleashed it towards the two Gigantic Ants. The cramped confines of the corridor meant that there was little chance of the ants escaping Paula's attack. Her attack struck the first Gigantic Ant and exploded, encasing him in a block of ice. Even the second Gigantic Ant suffered some splash damage from the icy explosion, with his right legs being frozen by the freezing psychic attack. Still, the second Gigantic Ant was not out of the fight yet. Next, the Gigantic Ant used PSI Magnet Alpha to drain psychic energy from Paula. Still, she had enough reserves to deal with this ant. She fired off another blast of PSI Freeze, this time at its Beta level since the Gigantic Ant was already hurting and she did not want to use more psychic energy than was necessary. The snowflake crossed the distance between the two parties with blinding speed and struck the ant before he was able to try to dodge. The second Gigantic Ant was now encased in a block of ice, along with his summoner.

With the battle having concluded, Ness pulled out his remaining Secret Herb and he devoured it, curing himself of his paralysis. Immediately upon eating the herb, he was able to walk again. He rose up and went over to check on the others. Poo took out one of his Secret Herbs and ate it curing him of his paralysis. Poo immediately rose and began to walk around, testing his strength to make sure that he was fully healed. Once he was satisfied of his full recovery, the party continued on their way to face the Sanctuary Guardian, the Pieces of Eight.

Along the way to the ladder that would take them to the Sanctuary Guardian, they found another gathering of enemies. This congregation consisted of three Thirsty Coil Snakes and four Mad Ducks. Ness and the others did not want to waste any time dealing with them, so upon sighting the enemies, Paula and Poo opened fire with blasts of PSI Thunder. Bolts of lightning streaked from their fingertips and electrocuted the Mad Ducks, rendering them unconscious, and also managed to take out a Thirsty Coil Snake in the process. Unfortunately, two more Thirsty Coil Snakes made their way toward Paula. They were about to strike when they suddenly found themselves flying though the air and into the wall a few meters away. Paula looked over at Ness and found him smiling at her. She smiled back, thanking him for his timely assistance. With this minor nuisance having been dealt with, the group walked along the path until they found the ladder that took them one floor down, to the location of the next Sanctuary Guardian, and the Sanctuary itself. The party climbed down the ladder; first Ness, then Paula, followed by Poo, and finally Giygas.

Upon arriving at the lower level, the party found another tunnel that led east. The group followed the pathway, but there was a sneaky Gigantic Ant down this pathway. The Gigantic Ant shielded himself from Paula's telepathic scan and from Poo's energy sensing abilities and managed to ambush the party. The Gigantic Ant, knowing that Paula was the greatest threat to him, paralyzed her with Paralysis Alpha. However, before he could launch another attack, he was frozen solid by a snowflake of PSI Freeze Gamma that was launched by Poo. With that brief skirmish over, Paula used one of her Secret Herbs to cure herself of her paralysis. With her paralysis cured, the party moved on. Ness, however, was getting wise to the enemy's tricks. They were trying to get the party to use all of their items, or use a lot of psychic energy to cure them of their status ailments. However, it was too little, too late, since there had not been that many enemy encounters while they had been fighting the Guardian Coins, and the Coins had posed little threat to the party.

The group then followed the path until they came to an alcove at the end of the tunnel. In the alcove, they found a swirl of white energy. As they approached, they heard a cold weasely voice speak. "So you guys finally came, huh? This is the second 'Your Sanctuary' location for those stones, but now it's mine. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Take it from me, if you dare…"

The Sanctuary Guardian then appeared from the swirling field of energy, appearing as eight gold coins bound together by strings of energy forming a circle. Each gold coin had a face on it that leered at the teens and Giygas. Giygas would have none of that, though, and he powered a ball of PSI Special in his left hand and launched it at the Pieces of Eight. The ball of energy went straight to the center of the circle that was the Pieces of Eight and detonated, engulfing each and every coin in a green globe of psychic energy. Giygas smiled. He figured that the fight would be over before it even began. However, he was startled when a bolt of PSI Thunder lashed out at him and struck his shield. The globe of energy dissipated and the faces of the Pieces of Eight grinned. "We knew before you even entered the cave that you were working for the enemy," they entity said, in eight different voices melded together as one. "Why do you think we created the Guardian Coins to take on you and the humans? We now know about your psychic attacks and can defend ourselves against them."

Giygas grimaced. "Defend yourselves against this!" he exclaimed, as he fired a lance of green psychic energy at one of the coins. The PSI Beam Gamma attack pierced the psychic shield of the Pieces of Eight, collapsing it, and lanced one of the coins, boring a hole into its center. The coin then blackened and collapsed into a pile of ashes. This did not kill the entity, though. The remaining coins merely laughed as they unleashed a PSI Beam Gamma attack on Giygas. His shield managed to absorb the blow, but he was pushed back by the force of the attack. Giygas quickly launched another PSI Beam at one of the other coins. The attack struck the coin, but seemed to have no effect. The Pieces of Eight laughed again.

"Don't you get it? None of your attacks work on me, now. I can neutralize any psychic or physical blow after having experienced it once, either as a Guardian Coin or as the Pieces of Eight. I can neutralize all of your attacks save for PSI Freeze, and as we know, you'll only be able to get one or two of us before you'll be unable to use any more attacks. You may as well just give up now! And don't try to mind control me, either. I know that you all tried to scan for my presence earlier. That's enough for me to block any attempt at mind control!" the remaining Pieces of Eight cackled.

Giygas merely sighed. For one, he, himself, was out of options. But Ness and the others were not ready to call it quits just yet. In fact, Ness smiled. Paula immediately knew what Ness was thinking. She backed away as Ness and Poo took point. _So this thing can neutralize any psychic attack that it has encountered before_, Ness thought. _I'll just have to make sure that it won't survive long enough to learn anything_. And Ness and Poo had the perfect psychic attacks for that. Ness immediately powered a ball of PSI Rockin in his right hand, and a dozen blue orbs appeared all around Poo. The gold coins laughed. "Man, do you kids have a learning disability or something? I already told you that PSI Specials won't work on me."

Ness merely grinned and yelled, "PSI Rockin Omega!" He then unleashed his ball of Rockin at the Pieces of Eight.

Poo added his own weight to the attack, crying out, "PSI Starstorm Omega!" He then proceeded to extend his hands forward and unleash the full fury of his Starstorm barrage.

The Pieces of Eight, now seven, recoiled in surprise. They suddenly realized that they had not encountered Poo's attack before. But they were unconcerned. They were strong enough to survive a Starstorm attack and they knew that Ness's attack was an attack that they had already encountered before. They then took the assault facing the teens, cackling all the time. Ness's ball of Rockin struck first, exploding as it reached the center of the Pieces of Eight, and expanding into a globe, engulfing the seven coins. As the coins were engulfed by the globe of scarlet psychic energy, they realized that they had made a fatal mistake. Ness's special psychic attack was actually nothing like Giygas's at all. It was unique to him alone. And even worse was the fact that it was extremely powerful, itself. They could feel themselves being burned by the psychic energy of Ness's Rockin. And that led to their next problem, the more than a dozen blue orbs of Poo's Starstorm Omega that were headed straight for them. Using his psychic senses, Poo was able to ascertain the location of each and every remaining coin. He assaulted the coins with the stars from his Starstorm. Each impact created an explosion that engulfed more than one coin. The stars were striking so quickly that the coins had no chance to adapt to the attack and neutralize it. After a few seconds, each of the coins was annihilated, and the Pieces of Eight were destroyed. Paula had not needed to enter the fight at all.

Upon the destruction of the Pieces of Eight, Paula, Poo, and Giygas stepped forward into the swirl of white energy. Immediately upon stepping into the swirl, they heard a melody play inside their minds and memories from their childhoods came to the surface of their minds. For Paula, she remembered the image of her parents playing with her when she was young. For Poo, it was him playing with his parents in Dalaam, before he was trained in how to use his psychic powers. For Giygas, it was a tender moment with his mother, Maria. At the end of the memories, the teens and Giygas heard a voice sing, "_…simple as can be…_" When this memory and song came to Giygas's mind, tears began to form in his eyes. He then fought them back, almost audibly growling in the process. After the memories came to them, the swirl of light disappeared and the cave was dark once more. The group then took a step back and Giygas said in a melancholy voice, "Come on, let's go back to Saturn Valley."

The others nodded and the group made their way out of the alcove and towards a ladder in another alcove. They climbed the ladder and they found themselves back on the first floor of the mine. Two Gigantic Ants were in front of them, but upon seeing the party come towards them, they turned away and fled down the corridor. Since Ness and the others had defeated their boss, the Pieces of Eight, they now wanted no part of fighting Ness and the others. As a result, the return trip to the Dusty Dunes Desert was fairly uneventful. When they arrived back in the desert, Ness gathered the group to him. Once they had been gathered, they teleported back to Saturn Valley.

High in the sky above the desert, a Starman watched the view screen of their Fighter UFO from the co-pilot's chair. He saw the image of Giygas standing with the human psychics as they teleported away. The Starman then brought up images and known biographical information on Ness, Paula, and Poo, his companions. Still, it had been Giygas that wrote most of the information, so the Starman was more than a little suspicious of that information now that he knew of Giygas's betrayal. The pilot opened a comm channel to Mount Itoi and said, "Starman Deluxe Alpha, this is Fighter UFO Zero-One-Two reporting in. We have sighted Giygas with the human psychics. They have just left the Gold Mine in Dusty Dunes Desert." He paused for a few seconds, his eyes glowing while he looked down at the surface, before continuing, "I am no longer sensing the Pieces of Eight, and the Sanctuary energy has changed in the last few minutes. I believe that Giygas and the humans have claimed another Sanctuary."

A startling line of profanity came in over the radio. The Starman Deluxe then spoke to the two Starmen, saying, "Alright. We'll have to write that Sanctuary off as well."

"May I make a suggestion?" the copilot interrupted.

"Sure," the Starman Deluxe Alpha replied sarcastically.

The Starman still made his suggestion. "Perhaps we should increase security around the rest of the Sanctuaries, those we currently have full control of."

"I'm already doing that," the Starman Deluxe responded, his rage apparent over the radio.

"Then perhaps we should try to ascertain which Sanctuary Giygas and the others will go to next and have a force waiting for them," the normal copilot Starman suggested.

There was a pause before the Starman Deluxe answered, "You just got yourself a promotion, Starman. Standby for further orders. I'll be talking to you two again."

With a good feeling, the Starmen cut the radio transmission and waited for their orders. Back at Mount Itoi, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha was pouring over all of the information about the recent battles and attacks on the Sanctuaries, trying to ascertain where Giygas and the others would strike next.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

Ness and his party reappeared in the middle of Saturn Valley once more, their mission a success. Looking around the valley, they found that it was just as peaceful as they had left it a few hours ago. Several Mr. Saturns were walking around, minding their own business. There was one major difference, though. In the middle of the valley lay a large flying saucer that was reminiscent of the Transport UFOs, though not quite as large. It was noticeably larger than the Fighter UFOs that they often encountered. The craft was large enough to fit the entire party, including Giygas, with room to spare. Ness began to think that it reminded him of the UFO that George repaired and used to take them to the flagship of the PSI Aliens when they went to rescue Maria. It stood upon a trio of landing pads. On both the dorsal and ventral surface of the saucer were quad energy cannons that looked much like the energy cannons on the defense drones that patrolled Saturn Valley. In addition to the visible dorsal and ventral cannons, two rocket pods were visible on the ventral surface as well. Ness figured that the craft also had an internal weapons bay as well. This craft looked like it was designed to dish out a massive amount of punishment to any enemy within range.

A boarding ramp extended from a section of the craft as a door opened on the side of the flying saucer. Two Mr. Saturns and Jeff emerged from the craft and walked down the ramp to the ground. Jeff saw the party and his face beamed with pride in his new work. "Feast your eyes on the Sky Runner II," Jeff proclaimed with pride in a loud voice. The others took a look at it, but did not feel the same about the ship as Jeff had. He frowned for a moment. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Ness answered quickly. "I just don't know why you're beaming about that craft."

"Then I'll tell you," Jeff replied with a grin. "The Sky Runner II is a spaceship that is based on UFO technology. In fact, we used the remains of a UFO that had been shot down as the main body for the craft. The Mr. Saturns had been working on this to fix it up for some time, but I had some new ideas on how to improve it so it would help us on our mission.

"Unlike the original Sky Runner, the Sky Runner II was designed with combat in mind," Jeff proclaimed, motioning toward the large UFO. "It is faster, more maneuverable, and has more armor than the original Sky Runner, and even current PSI Alien UFOs. But most importantly, it has superior armaments to the UFOs flown by the PSI Aliens. It has a combination of Earth weapons as well as Mr. Saturn weaponry. You can already see the underbelly main quad energy cannon, but we also have other weapons. We've got a dorsal quad cannon as well. We also have eight retractable GAU-8 Avenger cannons, acquired by the Mr. Saturns from the U.S. military for their assistance in fighting the PSI Aliens, two set on the forward, aft, port, and starboard sides. They can swivel a bit so they can overlap in fields of fire. In addition, we also have forward firing rocket pods, each capable of holding up to twenty rockets, each. The rockets are also HEAT rockets so they'll be effective against enemy ground vehicles. We also have a large weapons bay with a full array of air-to-air missiles. The Sky Runner II currently carries fourteen such missiles. These will be really useful for shooting down any other UFOs that come within range and get a little too nosy. We also have IFF transponders tuned to identify us as friendly to the Earth military forces, so assuming we don't jump into the middle of a battle, we shouldn't be attacked by any Earth aircraft or SAM missiles."

"Let's hope that the transponders and codes work," Paula commented. "I don't want to face down our own people."

"They already work," Jeff added. "We just got finished testing them on the Mr. Saturn defense drones. And just to make sure that should our craft be captured, we have to transmit a special code that changes every hour and can only be accessed by a button combination that rotates every hour between four different combinations. Failure to do so automatically identifies us as an enemy to Earth and Mr. Saturn forces."

Ness was impressed, as was Giygas. Giygas gave an imitation of a human whistling at how impressed he was with this technology. "This is even more advanced than the UFO that George used to get back to our flagship, and he had access to our technology. To have made all of these advances in only a few hours is quite impressive."

"Thank you," Jeff replied. "There were some tradeoffs that we had to make, though. As you can guess, the only air to ground weapons we have are the ventral quad energy cannon, the GAU-8 Avengers, and the rocket pods. All of the missiles I put on this thing are air-to-air. That means that we might be in some trouble if we are forced to face any PSI Alien tanks that might come up and try to shoot us down."

"We don't have any tanks," Giygas told him. "We do have some mechas, but we have not built any tanks. We generally don't participate much in ground assaults unless we wish to study something, and our UFOs have proven sufficient for our needs. Truth be told, despite your youth, technologically and evolutionarily speaking, humanity is putting up a much better fight than many older, more advanced, and even more powerful races. You have a tenacity about you that keeps you from quitting. This part of your nature intrigues my people greatly."

Ness and the others did not know what to make of Giygas's compliment at first. For a second, they began to wonder if the PSI Aliens were purposefully pulling their punches. As if sensing their questions, Giygas assured them, "My people are not pulling their punches against your people. They merely underestimated you and first sent the Vanguard Fleet, which got annihilated in the first attack, and have since started sending successive waves to test your capacity to inflict harm to their fleet." He paused for a moment. "You may have noticed this already, but if not, you will find that our fleet is not all that powerful in and of itself, relatively speaking. Oh, we have powerful enough bombardment weapons ranging in what you would call the kiloton range, but there are many other races that have stronger starships. Our strength is in our psychic abilities. Our ships are merely designed to get us to where we wish to go. Our offensive strength is our psychic might. Your battle tactics have confounded us, using psychics to jam our own even for a split second while you launch your nuclear weapons at our ships was brilliant, and a tactic that other races never employed, those that had comparable weapons and powers."

The others were beginning to be bored by Giygas's explanations. They knew more than anyone what was coming and no matter what humanity had left, that they would not be able to face the full might of the remaining PSI Alien species. As soon as Giygas had finished, Jeff went over to Ness and asked, "So, how did your mission go?"

"It went fine," Ness answered. "The Pieces of Eight were tough, though."

"Pieces of Eight?" Jeff asked, having to suppress a laugh.

"Yeah," Ness replied, laughing. "The Pieces of Eight were eight golden coins bound together with a face. They had sent Guardian Coins to face us and learn our attacks so they could neutralize them once we used our powers on them. They even managed to neutralize Giygas's attacks. However, Poo and I were able to beat them with Starstorm and Rockin respectively since we had not used those attacks in the mine before our fight with the Guardian."

"Good thinking," Jeff complimented.

Ness then took a look at the craft and asked, "So, when will this thing be ready to go?"

"In about half an hour," Jeff replied. "We're already fuelling the Sky Runner II."

"Good," Ness replied. "Any other tradeoffs that we should know about?"

"Not really," Jeff replied. "This thing can't go faster than light, if you consider that a tradeoff right now, though it can still fly in space and it still has life support systems. The Mr. Saturns and I took out the hyperdrive in order to allow for more weapons and cargo space."

Ness had no problems with that. "So in half an hour, we'll be ready, right?"

"Sure," Jeff replied. "But are you sure you want to tackle another Sanctuary so soon after going through a Sanctuary that was as tough on you as the last one?"

"We have to, Jeff," Ness told him. "The world won't hold out much longer against the PSI Aliens. If we don't take the fight to them soon, there won't be much of a world left to save."

Giygas had been listening in on Ness's conversation with Jeff and interjected, "I may be able to do something that could buy the Earth some time."

"What is it?" Ness asked. He did not have an air of suspicion around the question anymore. He was beginning to trust Giygas more, now.

"I'll have to leave for a while, but I should be back pretty soon," he told Ness. Ness was suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Sensing this, Giygas added, "My people and the Starmen must know by now that New York is our next target. So I'm going to tell them what they expect to hear, acting like I'm actually trying to study you since you are so much stronger than any other human psychic we've encountered. It should be enough since they'll want to avoid any unnecessary casualties. After I talk to the Starmen at Mount Itoi and get them to commit a City Smasher UFO to the city, I'll alert the U.S. military forces around the city of the buildup of troops around the remains of New York City and tell them the shield frequencies of the City Smasher. It should also allow them to launch a strike against the fleet up in orbit without needing to utilize as many nuclear weapons as they used against the other waves. While it won't save the Earth in the long run, it will give the Earth some time to relax and prepare for the final assault."

Before Ness could say anything or protest, Giygas disappeared. Paula and Poo walked over and noticed that Giygas was gone. "Where's Giygas?" Paula asked.

"Gone," Jeff replied.

"He says he has a plan that can allow the Earth some breathing room against the fleet up in orbit," Ness said. His tone indicated that he was suspicious of Giygas's intentions. If there was ever an opportunity to betray the group, now was the time. Still, Paula was not convinced of Giygas's treachery.

"You still think he's working for them," she accused.

Ness did not deny it. "I thought, for a time, that he might actually be on our side, but this plan of his has 'I've got some really juicy information about the abilities of the Chosen Four; here's how to beat them,' written all over it."

"Don't be so mistrustful," Paula told him. "This is also a good opportunity to supply misinformation to his people. After all, it's highly likely that the Starmen have figured out that our next Sanctuary target is New York. Besides, Giygas has a Sound Stone, too. If he were to betray us, it wouldn't be until he has all of the melodies."

"That's assuming that he does not know all of the Sanctuary Guardians to begin with," Ness countered. "The only one that seems to have any real special abilities that could cause someone like him trouble was the Pieces of Eight. The other Guardians that we know of are likely to have abilities similar to what we expect."

Exasperated, Paula glared at him and cried, "Stop, just stop with this Giygas bashing."

"I'm not bashing Giygas," Ness told her, raising his voice. "I just don't want to be played for a fool. If Giygas is being honest with us, great. But if he's betraying us, I want us to be prepared. We lost to him last time. If we fight him now, I don't know if we'll be able to win."

"Which is why I think Giygas is still good," Paula said. "If he wanted us dead, we'd be dead."

Again, Ness could find no fault with Paula's logic at the time. Still, there was something going on. Still, he decided to take Paula's advice and wait and see what happened. Still, she was right. Even with their growing strength, Giygas was more powerful than the entire team put together. Paula then proceeded to search for a bench to rest on. When she found one, she sat down. Jeff came over to Ness and told him, "Just so you know, I was a little suspicious of Giygas as well. I wasn't there in your last Sanctuary battle, but I could easily see Giygas using you to take out the one potential Sanctuary Boss that could give him trouble."

Ness agreed. "I hear you. But for some reason, Paula still thinks that he's good." He then gave a shrug. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "I mean, Giygas hasn't done anything to make our fights more difficult, but he has let us deal with some more dangerous foes on our own and he had not exactly volunteered to heal us during or after battles in which we were poisoned or paralyzed. We had to use Refreshing and Secret Herbs to heal us after battles to conserve our psychic energy, a problem that Giygas does not have."

"I don't know what to say," Jeff told him. "What does your gut say?"

"That's just it. I don't know, yet. Right now, it could go either way."

"Then I suggest we wait and see what happens," Jeff advised. "But either way, the PSI Aliens are going to be waiting for us in New York. So I suggest we prepare for a drawn out battle."

Ness nodded. He was about to turn to join Paula on the bench when he remembered the Big Bottle Rocket. He took off his backpack and opened it. He reached in and grabbed the Big Bottle Rocket and went over to Jeff. "Hey, wait," he called to the genius. When he arrived, he handed Jeff the rocket, saying, "I found this on our last adventure. It's not a Multi Bottle Rocket, but I hope it'll still come in handy."

Jeff accepted the Bottle Rocket and replied, "Thanks, Ness. I need some more ammunition for use other than these valuable Multi Bottle Rockets."

Jeff then stuffed the Big Bottle Rocket inside his backpack. Before leaving, he told Ness, "You might want to delay the departure time for the next Sanctuary for a little bit. I've been busy working on the Sky Runner II, so I haven't built any diving suits for us when we go to Atlantis. It should only take me an hour or two to whip up the suits, though."

Ness gave him the okay, and Jeff went back to checking on the ship before beginning work on the underwater diver suits. Ness then went over and saw that Paula was rising from the bench and heading over to one of the hotels, likely to change and wash her clothes since the group would be away from hotels and lodging for a while, given the Sanctuary locations. Poo just sat outside and meditated on the events of the past few days and prepared himself for what was to come.

Over at Mount Itoi, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha was still pouring over the data that he had collected about the taking of the second Sanctuary, trying to surmise where the group would strike next. After looking at the data, he figured that the most likely places that they would strike would be either New York or Lava Mountain on one of the Hawaiian Islands in the Pacific Ocean. Still, it was a tossup as to which Sanctuary that they would try to conquer first. He hoped that they would try to take on Lava Mountain first, since the Carbon Dog was the Sanctuary Guardian and he was one of the most powerful of the Sanctuary Guardians. Still, there was just as much chance that they would go to New York, where the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom was waiting in the subway system, oddly enough. The Electric Sewer Rat of Doom was powerful on offense, but limited in terms of defense. Still, its primary means of attack was lightning, which would collapse any shield or counter it came across.

The Starman Deluxe's planning was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Giygas in his room. The Starman Deluxe's eyes flashed with rage at the sight of the traitor. He went over to the radio console to alert security to Giygas's intentions, and to sound the alarm. Sparks immediately erupted from the console and it was nonfunctional.

"Traitor," the Starman Deluxe hissed as he unleashed a massive barrage of Starstorm Omega at Giygas. Dozens of orbs of energy rocketed towards the PSI Alien. Each orb had the strength of a tactical nuclear bomb and as they struck Giygas's shield, his shield flared for a brief instant. However, his shield still held against the withering assault. More notable, though, was the fact that none of the stars were being reflected back at him. Not only that, but Giygas made no attempt to attack the Starman Deluxe. That did not matter to the Starman Deluxe, though. He immediately launched into another attack. This time, he fired a green beam of energy from his visor. The beam of energy struck Giygas's shield but had no more success at penetrating, or even draining, it than the Starstorm attack.

The Starman Deluxe gritted his teeth. He decided that the best bet for him was to use an attack that could penetrate shields, PSI Thunder. He knew that it would likely be of little use against his former master, but he was quickly running out of options. Lightning crackled around the tentacles of the Starman Deluxe and he extended his arms towards Giygas and unleashed his stream of PSI Thunder Omega. Giygas shrugged as he let the blast of PSI Thunder strike his shields. As with the previous attacks, the PSI Thunder failed to penetrate the shields, or even inflict any real damage on them. Again, though, the Thunder was not reflected back at the Starman Deluxe. The Starman Deluxe was livid.

"Why don't you attack me?" he cried as he charged Giygas. He tried to swing his tentacle-like arm around Giygas's neck and choke the traitor, but Giygas merely disappeared. Giygas instantly reappeared behind the Starman Deluxe and grabbed his arms and held them in a vice-like grip. The Starman Deluxe grinned from inside his suit and used PSI Thunder to electrify himself in an attempt to shock Giygas. Electricity arced across Giygas's body, but he showed no signs of being affected by the attack.

"You'll need more current if you want that defense to be effective," Giygas scolded. "Didn't I teach you anything?"

The Starman Deluxe screamed again and yelled, "Die traitor!" He then fired a blast of PSI Fire at Giygas. He was getting desperate now. Again, the stream of fire had no effect on Giygas at all. The fire washed over his shield and surrounded and engulfed Giygas, but Giygas still casually walked right towards the Starman Deluxe. He was now standing within inches of the Starman Deluxe's face, the Starman Deluxe still pushing energy into his ineffective PSI Fire attack. There, Giygas remained until the Starman Deluxe ran out of energy and the fire that was being unleashed against Giygas ceased. The Starman Deluxe fell to his knees in exhaustion.

"Do it," he eventually said, breathing heavily. "Kill me."

"Why?" Giygas asked. This question took the Starman Deluxe off guard.

"Because you are working with the enemy," the Starman Deluxe responded hesitantly, beginning to wonder what Giygas was getting at.

Giygas gave a chuckle. "And what makes you think that I'm working with the humans," he asked, almost mockingly.

"One of our Starman Supers spotted you traveling with a group of human psychics," Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha replied. "This report was later substantiated when one of our craft spotted you with the same human psychics in the Dusty Dunes Desert."

Giygas chuckled again. "I guess you have me dead to rights," he told the Starman Deluxe. After a short pause, he asked, "So, what are you going to do now?"

The Starman Deluxe looked up at Giygas's face. "I could ask you the same thing," the Starman replied. "Why haven't you killed me yet?"

"Because I'm still your commander and am still loyal to my people," Giygas replied with a sincere smile. "I'm only pretending to join the humans so I can gain their trust and study them." He then handed the Starman Deluxe four small vials containing hair strands.

"These are hairs taken from the Chosen Four," Giygas explained. "I want your science experts to analyze these DNA samples from the quartet. I need to know why they are so much stronger than any other human psychic I have ever encountered. Only Maria comes close to them, and she was much older than they are now when I fought her. And even now, Ness is at least as powerful as Maria was. I also know that Jeff is not psychic, but he has a connection to them. I can feel it. I want to know what that connection is."

"It shall be done, Master," Starman Deluxe Alpha responded as he rose to leave.

"One more thing," Giygas added before the Starman Deluxe left. The Starman turned to face Giygas.

"What is it, Master?"

"I have discovered that the Chosen Four are planning on conquering the Sanctuary in New York City."

"We have already surmised that as one of the targets," the Starman Deluxe answered. "I have already diverted troops to that location."

"How many?" Giygas asked.

"I have called in a hundred Starmen infantry, sixty Madnug mechs, and over one hundred Fighter class UFOs and higher to combat the Chosen Four," the Starman Deluxe answered. "And that's not counting the thousand plus other rank and file soldiers and the R7037 series of robots that will be coming in to assist them."

"Triple it," Giygas ordered. "And make sure some of the Starmen present are Starman Warriors." The Starman Deluxe's jaw hung open.

"But Master, we've already sent most of our forces to engage much of the remaining United States of America military forces," the Starman Deluxe said in protest. "If we bring in more troops, we'll be pulling much needed forces away from other bases."

"Then take them from the forces that are out on patrol for psychics and other human military forces in North America. And bring in a City Smasher as well," Giygas added.

"Master, these are only four human children!" the Starman Deluxe protested.

"Which are more powerful than all of the other human psychics put together," Giygas countered. "These 'children' are stronger than any Starman type and are a match for a weak PSI Lord. Heck, together, they can hold their own against me for a time and not die instantly. That should tell you something."

Seeing that there was little sense in arguing with Giygas, the Starman Deluxe relented. "It shall be done as you command, Master," he told Giygas.

"Good," Giygas said, satisfied. "Also, I want _you_ to be in command of the attacking force."

The Starman Deluxe saluted. "As you command." The Starman Deluxe headed for the door, which Giygas psychically unlocked. The door slid open and the Starman Deluxe vanished.

Giygas could only smile as the Starman Deluxe left. "If you don't hate me after this upcoming battle, you will in the aftermath of this fight," Giygas whispered inaudibly to the Starman Deluxe, who was already assembling his forces for the attack and contacting the others, explaining the situation with Giygas. "If you survive, that is," Giygas added. He then vanished from the room, leaving it barren.

United States Air Force and U.S. Marine forces that had gathered at the reopened Plattsburgh Air Force Base in the northern part of New York patrolled the area, searching for signs of alien opposition, as well as drilled and trained for deployment and for the assault on the assembling alien forces inside the remains of New York. It was one of the few bases in New York that had not suffered attacks from the PSI Aliens, and as such was now being used by both the Air Force and Marines. Standing inside the main building was the commander of the base, General Luke Xavier, a tall, Caucasian man in his early fifties. He looked out over the airfield as several F-28 Phantasms and a couple F-24 Wraiths made preparations for launch. He had heard of a gathering of Starmen and other alien forces inside the remains of New York City. He had been from New York and had been present during the rebuilding of the city when the Starmen had come and rained destruction down on the city. He was lucky in that his family had evacuated the city before its destruction. Many others under his command had not been so lucky. After the first alien attack was beaten back, the Plattsburgh Air Force Base was one of the formerly decommissioned military bases in New York that had been reactivated. For the week since the second PSI Alien fleet had arrived and had been striking the Earth out in the open, he had been organizing counterattacks and coordinating with other air bases the best strategy for taking down the enemy. He had met with some success against the PSI Aliens. The F-24s Wraiths and F-28 Phantasms were quite effective against the flying saucers used by the aliens, and the A-10 Warthogs were just as effective against the Gundam-like mechs as they were against tanks. He also had some old F-15s and F-22s present in the hangar as well. The Marines also had some naval fighters, such as the F-32 Hammers and F-34 Katanas.

General Xavier was going over the plans on how to attack the force that was gathering inside New York when Giygas suddenly appeared in front of him. General Xavier did not recognize Giygas as an enemy immediately, but was startled at the surprise appearance of the tall alien. Immediately, two security officers that had been in the room with him leveled their weapons at Giygas as the General ordered, "Identify yourself at once."

"My name is Giygas," Giygas replied. "I am here to make an offer."

The General was understandably wary of Giygas's intentions. "Giygas, huh?" he mused. "I remember reports of the alien leader being named Giygas. How do I know that you aren't the alien leader?"

"You don't," Giygas responded curtly. "And, as it turns out, I am, or was, at least of the initial assault."

That prompted the two guards to fire a couple of bursts from their machine guns. The bullets rocketed from the rifles of the soldiers and almost instantaneously struck Giygas's shield, though the attacks were not strong enough to cause the shield to flare. Still, as with the Starman Deluxe's attacks, the bullets were not reflected back at the soldiers and fell to the ground after striking his shield. In fact, Giygas made no move against them at all. Staring into the face of the general, Giygas proclaimed, "If I had wanted you dead, you would be dead, and this base would be destroyed. The fact that I have not launched any type of attack or used a counter shield of any kind should show you my good intentions. As stated before, I have come with an offer."

General Xavier was still wary of Giygas, but he was a shrewd man. He had heard reports of Giygas's capacity, as well as the capacities of the Starmen. The fact that the Starmen were morons when it came to battle tactics was the only reason why Earth had scored any real victories against them. They had outnumbered the remaining military forces of Earth by a large margin, and even when their UFOs were shot down, they still had the Starmen to deal with, who were almost impossible for normals to take down unless said normal managed to get in a surprise shot. And only the stronger psychics could take a Starman, or weaken them sufficiently to allow conventional military forces to kill them. In this situation, even a normal Starman would have been able to kill them. This fact was not lost on Giygas, either, who just stood there, waiting for the General's answer. But his patience was wearing thin. "If you do not wish to take up my offer, I will take my leave of you," Giygas said as he was backing away.

"Wait," the General called.

Giygas stopped and turned back to the General. "Yes?"

"What is your offer?" the General asked.

Giygas then took a breath. "There is a force of Starmen, Madnug mechs, and UFOs that will be assembling in New York. They have been informed of a group of powerful human psychics going to New York to look for something."

"But we have no psychics going to New York," General Xavier told Giygas.

"I know that," Giygas replied calmly. "These psychics are not military and have only recently appeared. While they are powerful, the force of Starmen gathering in New York is going to be more than sufficient to kill the humans that are coming. At least three hundred Starmen of various ranks will be present. Along with at least one hundred and eighty Madnug mechs and three hundred Fighter UFOs."

The General's mouth hung open. "My God," he gasped. "That's a large portion of the entire force that's attacking the U.S. at the moment."

"And it gets better," Giygas said with a grin. "The second City Smasher is going to be there as well, with its full compliment of R7038s/XXs, UFOs, Madnug mechs, etcetera."

This did little to boost the General's confidence. "Are you trying to convince me to abandon my plans to attack the base in New York?"

Giygas shook his head. "No, just the opposite. I think that you and your men, along with the Marines and the Army forces here should attack the force."

"Attack?" the General gasped, dumbfounded at Giygas's answer. "Are you serious? We've only got around eighty fighters at this base, and only a few AC-130 Spectre Gunships. And that's before running up against that City Smasher…"

"Which is why I'm going to give you the shield frequency of the City Smasher," Giygas responded coolly. "This should allow even your heavier non-nuclear weapons to inflict significant damage to the City Smasher. Hit it in the right spots, and you'll be able to take it down without resorting to your nuclear weapons. You might even be able to land the City Smasher on some of the Starmen too."

"But still…" the General began, still reeling from the plan, and the offer. "That's so many enemy troops that we'll have to face."

"Then you better get talking with your allies at the Army and other Air Force bases close by. They'll be there in a few hours, and they won't hang around forever. This is a very good opportunity to give at the very least the U.S. some breathing room in this war. The loss of the Fighter UFOs and the rank and file troops won't hurt, but losing over three hundred Starmen, some of them Starman Supers and even some Starman Deluxes, won't be so good for our forces now will it?"

"I guess not," the General said, shaking his head. "So, where will the main forces be concentrated? I need to know so we can send them a few Cruise Missiles for presents."

Giygas laughed at the joke. The next hour was spent going over the various flight patterns and formations of the enemy troops. He also gave the General potential contingency plans and counter attack plans should the Starmen realize that they're walking into a trap and plan accordingly. Giygas was careful not to mention the Sanctuary down in the subway system of New York. He also gave them the frequency to the shields of the City Smasher, as well as the shields of the fleet in orbit. This would also allow the Earth's military forces to coordinate a nuclear strike on the orbiting fleet, which would be devastating to the invasion plan, for after this wave, only the main fleet remained. And while the main fleet was far larger than any of the waves of ships that had attacked the Earth so far with more powerful ships, they were still almost guaranteed to lose a few ships in the ensuing battle, especially since the humans would be able to concentrate their forces on recapturing their own bases, and stockpiles of nuclear weapons, which could then be turned against the PSI Alien fleet coming to Earth.

After the plans were finalized, Giygas gave a confident smile. For the first time since he was a child, he actually felt as if he was doing the right thing and did not feel an incredible and indescribable sense of guilt. He watched as the humans were preparing for the attack. The codes for the shield frequencies of the orbiting fleet had already been sent to the trustworthy world leaders. Shield disruptors, a technology gifted to the human military forces by the Mr. Saturns, had already been installed on a hundred ASAT nuclear missiles, with another hundred that were confirmed to be ready by the time the attack on the fleet was made. Even better was the fact that many MOAMs and tactical nuclear weapons were now being outfitted with shield penetration technology as well, so the humans would not have to use nuclear weapons to take down the City Smasher. Giygas and General Xavier heard that the forces of the nearby Marine, Army, and Air Force bases, as well as aircraft from the aircraft carrier _U.S.S. Ronald Reagan_ were also now committed to the attack. That was over two hundred and twenty fighter jets. And that was before counting the AC-130 Spectres and various army helicopter gunships that would be present as well. The fighters were still outnumbered by the UFOs, but the numbers were much more even than they had initially been. Besides, Earth aerofighters had consistently proven their superiority to the Fighter UFOs flown by the Starmen in numerous battles. Not only that but, unlike in many mecha anime, where mechs tended to rule the ground, and the skies, tanks tended to fight evenly with the much more advanced Madnug mechs, and the A-10s were the grim reaper to the unfortunate mechs, and the humans had plenty of each for the upcoming fight. Satisfied that the humans would be able to mount their assault and emerge victorious, he made his plans to leave. But before doing so, he went up to General Xavier and said, "One more thing General. There will be a UFO, somewhat larger than our Fighter UFOs, that is coming to New York likely while you're still fighting the Starmen and their forces. This is a friendly craft and will transmit the proper IFF codes. Do not fire on it. These are the human psychics that I told you about earlier that are coming."

"Understood," the General responded, saluting Giygas.

Giygas then turned away and vanished from the General's sight. The General grinned as he looked over the plans. If all went well, he would not only manage to destroy a huge concentration of enemy soldiers, but also suffer comparatively light casualties in return.

Giygas reappeared in Saturn Valley just as the sun was beginning to set. With the Earth military forces set to attack during the night, when the Starmen would least expect a conventional Earth military attack, Ness and the others would have to get to New York in time to assist the humans. There would have to be a reason to stick around in New York, even should the Starmen realize that they were being led straight into a trap. Giygas went over to Ness, who was standing with Jeff. He told them, "The table is set. In five hours or so, U.S. military forces will attack a large gathering of Starmen and other PSI Alien soldiers in the remains of New York City. We should wait at least an hour or two to leave, depending on how fast this Sky Runner of yours can go." He then looked at Jeff as he issued his last statement.

"This thing can reach from here to New York City in about three hours or so at cruising speed."

"Then we should leave in two to two and a half hours, then," Giygas proclaimed.

Ness and Jeff nodded in agreement. The two of them then went to over to a rest area to inform Paula and Poo of the plan for the rest of the day, and night. The group then went to one of the restaurants in Saturn Valley and got something to eat. After they were finished, they went to get some rest until it was time to head to New York City, and the third Sanctuary.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8:

When the time came, Ness and the others made their preparations for takeoff. Paula had finished changing and washing her used clothes, as did the rest of the humans, and they brought along some provisions for the long journey ahead. They did not expect to be flying for more than a day at any given time, but there was no telling what the situation was going to be like in Scaraba or at the true Stonehenge monument in England, even though it was known that western European countries had suffered less at the hands of the PSI Aliens than many of the other countries in that part of the world. The boarding ramp to the Sky Runner II lowered and the Chosen Four and Giygas loaded the provisions and some of the other essentials onto the craft, including the party's weapons and items. Ness and the others also stopped at Saturn Bank and Trust to withdraw some money from their accounts. They had been surprised at the large amount of money that had been deposited into their accounts in their absence. Each teen had well over five thousand dollars in his or her account. They withdrew their money from their accounts, hoping that they would be able to buy useful and powerful items in the near future. They also bought some new clothes so they would not be limited to the small wardrobes that they currently possessed. In addition, Jeff had managed to get a Kevlar B, an enhanced form of Kevlar made by the Mr. Saturns, that offered even superior protection to normal Kevlar, shirt and jacket that was rated at Level V for protection, which meant that it could protect against hits from hand held energy weapons. This would be allow him to stand with Ness and the other psychics and not just be the load who went down to the weakest psychic or elemental bullet. Paula, Ness, and Poo had also bought vests and other clothing for themselves that offered Level IV protection, knowing that the armor would be helpful in the upcoming battles. He also bought some power packs for his Gaia Beam pistol.

Once they had made their preparations and loaded the Sky Runner II, the Chosen Four and Giygas made ready to board the human-made UFO. The boarding ramp extended to the ground with a hum of machinery. After the boarding ramp was fully extended, the group proceeded to walk up the ramp and board the UFO. Ness was the first to board, followed by Paula, then Jeff, next was Poo, with Giygas bringing up the rear.

After the group had boarded Ness, Paula, Poo, and Giygas marveled at the interior of the ship. The cockpit cabin was comfortable, housing two chairs for the pilot and copilot. The teens, minus Jeff and Giygas, then went to the cabin behind the cockpit. The cabin behind the cockpit housed a small bathroom with shower and four padded sleeping pallets for those occupying the rear quarters. The ship, despite its size, was like a small one floor flying house. Not only that, but the rear quarters had some small rugs near the pallets with a blue carpet. A clock was also mounted on the wall so the teens would not lose track of time. The walls, however, were not painted or decorated in any fashion. Ness, Paula, and Poo noted that their belongings had already been stored in this area near the sleeping pallets. Ness let Paula and Poo get acquainted with the rear cabin while he went back to the main cockpit to join Jeff and Giygas.

Upon entering the main cockpit once more, he looked over the layout of the cockpit control area. The cockpit control station looked like a cross between a car's dashboard, a fighter jet's control cockpit, and the bridge of a starship. There were two seats at the main piloting station, one for the pilot, the other for the copilot. In place of the steering wheel for the car was a joystick that controlled the maneuvering of the craft. The joystick had two trigger buttons that also fired the quad energy cannons in their default, forward facing setting. The laser cannons, however, could be controlled from two separate stations at the rear of the cockpit if necessary. Speed was controlled by a gas pedal, and braking was controlled by a brake pedal, much like in a normal car. Hover control was controlled by a switch above Jeff's station on the roof. The radio was also on the console to the right of the joystick. The pilot also had access to shield controls and also had the ability to transfer power from system to system. The copilot had control of the secondary weapons systems, such as the GAU-8 Avenger cannons, rocket pods, and the air-to-air missiles. There were three stations behind the pilot and copilot's station. They faced various sides of the cockpit, with one of the chairs facing directly to the aft, and not far from the exit that led to the rear cabin. Two of the stations allowed for individual control of the quad energy cannons, as well as the other weapons systems. They could set the quad energy cannons to automatic, or defense mode as well, which would allow them to take control of other secondary weapons systems should the situation call for such action. The final station, the one facing the rear of the ship, was for monitoring the ship's status. It had a shield and hull monitor and also stated how much fuel the ship had left, as well as the charge left in the energy cannons, and the current loadout of missiles and rockets.

Eventually, Paula and Poo returned to the cockpit and took their positions at two weapons stations, with Paula to the right rear of the copilot's station, and Poo to the left rear of the pilot's station. Giygas took command of the station that was facing the rear of the vessel. Jeff then sat down at the pilot's seat with Ness taking his seat at the copilot's station. "Everybody strap in," Jeff directed the others. Once the crew was in position, Jeff flicked a few switches on his console to the left of the joystick controller of the ship. A low-pitched hum sounded and immediately grew in pitch until it maintained a steady sound. Jeff activated a screen above the console and window from the cockpit that showed the location of the Mr. Saturns mulling about. He found several Mr. Saturns scattering as he was about to begin his ascent. He made sure that the Mr. Saturns were clear before lifting off. As soon as they were cleared, Jeff began to count down, "We will be lifting off in five, four, three, two, one. Liftoff!

After Jeff had called, "Liftoff," the Sky Runner II rose from the ground, a small gust of wind being produced as it lifted off. The liftoff also threw up some dust from the ground and the Mr. Saturns had to turn themselves away from the dust cloud. After rising a couple hundred feet into the air, the Sky Runner II quickly rocketed off in the direction of New York City east of the Saturn Valley, quickly accelerating to cruising speed. Jeff guessed that at cruising speed, he would reach the remains of New York in around two and a half to three hours or so. He also turned the radio on, so that when he approached the battle, assuming the battle was still being fought, he would be able to identify himself as a friend of the U.S. military forces that were engaging the PSI Aliens. Now all they could do was wait until they arrived in New York, and hope that the battle that was going to be fought there soon ended in favor of the U.S. military forces. In the back of the craft, the others did not notice Giygas closing his eyes as they made their way towards New York City. He opened his eyes a few seconds later and they were glowing a deep green.

In the remains of New York City, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha, the commander of all of the Starmen on Earth waited for news of the arrival of Ness and his friends in a prefabricated base in the ruins of New York that had been delivered to him by the City Smasher floating above downtown New York City. After he had alerted his forces to the plans of Ness to go to New York, as well as having given Giygas's orders with regards of his military strength and planning, he knew that he had them. He had thousands of troops in New York, concentrated near one of the entrances to the subway system that would take the humans to the next Sanctuary. He had been puzzled when Giygas left him after he given the orders to his subordinates, but he had figured that his master had returned to Ness and the others to avoid any suspicion of his true intentions.

From the command post inside his base, he listened in on the radio transmissions from other units that were scattered all around the world. Reports had indicated that the United States of America cities of Chicago, Baltimore City, and Boston had recently been destroyed in the most recent series of attacks on American cities. The Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha had recently called the Starman Deluxes and their forces away from those leveled cities to the remains of New York City to participate in the killing of Ness and his allies. They had been scheduled to attack cities such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Richmond next, but Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha viewed the absolute destruction of Ness and the rest of the Chosen Four as being more important than the destruction of those cities, despite the rumors that human psychics had been spotted in those cities.

While Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha was going over his plan of attack on Ness, a radio transmission came in that was clearer than the other garbled mess that so often came through on the radio. "Starman Deluxe Alpha, this is Starman One-Three-Five-Eight from Fighter UFO Gamma Two of Aggressor Wing, do you copy?"

Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha dashed towards the radio console and pried the radio microphone from its clip and put it to his visor. "This is _Neo_ Starman Deluxe Alpha, I read you. Go ahead." He made sure to emphasize the 'Neo' part since he was quite proud of his title as the Alpha of the newest breed of Starman Deluxes.

"Sir, we have spotted a human force headed towards New York City. It consists of a large number of human aircraft, tanks, and other surface based vehicles," the Starman reported. "I cannot get a clear scan of the human minds. I think they may have a psychic present that's jamming our telepathy. I request further backup from a Starman Super to cut through the jamming."

"Request granted," the Starman Deluxe responded. "I am sending Starman Super Zero-One-Alpha to assist you. He will be flying a golden Fighter UFO."

"Thank you, sir. What are your orders about how to deal with the human force?" the Starman requested.

"Once you find them and can identify their full strength, report back at once. We don't want to be caught up in a fight against human normals in case Ness happens to show up during the battle," came the response by the Starman Deluxe.

"Understood," the Starman replied.

Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha then cut the connection and sat back in a chair that was not too far away from the table. He had known that Earth military forces were conducting hit and run raids on Starman supply lines and on small forces of PSI Alien servant troops. Several groups in the area had already weathered several assaults from human forces before being summoned to New York City to trap and kill the Chosen Four. Giygas had also alerted them to the fact that human forces were already planning a rather large raid against the PSI Alien forces camped around New York. He figured that that was one of the reasons why Giygas had requested that he triple the initial forces that he was planning to deploy against Ness and the other human psychics. He felt that if the humans were stupid enough to attack his force, since the City Smasher was clearly visible, that his forces would rout their raiding party.

The Starman Deluxe waited for any report, either on Ness and his party, or on the human raiding force that was sure to come. The radio silence was broken when he heard the very report that he had been waiting for. "Come in Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha, do you copy? This is UFO Alpha Two of Slaughter Wing."

The Starman immediately grabbed the radio and said, "Go ahead Alpha Two."

"Sir, we have spotted an unidentified aircraft designed much like a UFO headed towards New York at a high cruising speed," the voice buzzed in over the radio. "Our estimates are that it will arrive in New York in little over ninety minutes, Earth time. Even more important is that I have gotten a clear scan of its occupants. It houses the Chosen Four." The voice sounded quite excited at the statement, as well as a little apprehensive. "Ness, Paula Polestar, Jeff Andonuts, and Prince Poo of the former kingdom of Dalaam are onboard. Requesting further orders."

"Follow the craft, but do not engage," Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha commanded. "I want to know that craft's capabilities before engaging it directly."

"Understood," the voice replied before the radio signal was cut off. The Starman Deluxe sat back in his chair and sighed. Now, it was only a matter of time before Ness and his party would arrive to a massive surprise, the last one they would ever receive before they died.

Meanwhile, Alpha Two of Slaughter Wing, piloted by a Greater Mook and a male Light Elf were tracking the unknown UFO-like craft that was flying at supersonic speeds towards New York City. The Fighter UFO followed the larger craft at a distance of forty miles, which was barely within close range sensor and weapons range. The Greater Mook glided a tentacle over the console of the dashboard of the UFO while two of his other tentacles gripped the control yoke. He pushed the craft a little farther forward. This drew some concern from his Light Elf copilot.

"Are you sure that's wise?" the Light Elf asked. He was not sure that their craft should risk getting too close and risk being detected by the humans. Unlike the Greater Mook, who wore no clothes, the Light Elf was clad in an exquisite suit of armor that left only his head uncovered. Had he been stationed on the ground, he would have worn a face-covering helmet along with the rest of his armor. Not only that, but a sword would be at his waist, along with an energy pistol for a ranged sidearm. The main weapon, which the Light Elf still had, though it was stowed underneath his seat at the moment, was an energy rifle that could fire blasts of energy that were capable of blowing limbs off of humans if an indirect hit was scored. Still, he did not mind being in the cockpit of a Fighter UFO. While he relished combat and had been a veteran of a couple previous campaigns where his hand-to-hand combat and weapons combat skills had been put to good use, he was more than content to be the weapons officer in this craft, since his piloting skills were non-existent. After all, it was rare now for soldiers like the Light Elves and other minions to fight on the ground. They would mostly only have offered support for Starman Supers and Starman Deluxes when they went to destroy cities, those that were not stationed at a base of some sort. The Onett battle had been an aberration, as was the gathering in New York. And the Light Elf knew that they were expecting to suffer heavy casualties taking down this trio of psychics and their genius friend. That was, of course, assuming that the humans weren't killed first, which the Light Elf wondered was the aim of the Greater Mook piloting this ship. "Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha has ordered us not to engage the enemy right now," the Light Elf told the Greater Mook anxiously. "Two of the humans onboard that ship can teleport off the ship. Unless we destroy that ship in midair, something that is unlikely given our current loadout, they will have a chance to teleport to safety."

"I'm not going to destroy them," the Greater Mook retorted. "I'm merely going in for a closer scan." The Greater Mook then looked out at the Sky Runner II from his UFO cockpit window. "For an instant, I thought that I had picked up another lifeform onboard that ship."

"A fifth human?" the Light Elf inquired.

"No, it wasn't human," the Greater Mook replied, his mind racing to try to identify the mysterious lifeform onboard the Sky Runner II. "But it was psychic," he added cautiously.

"A non-human psychic helping the human race?" the Light Elf mused. "I wonder who, or what, it could be. I mean, there aren't all that many psychic races out there to begin with, and the PSI Lords have wiped out most of those that had once existed. Perhaps it's a survivor of one of those races?" he wondered.

"I doubt it," the Greater Mook replied. "For one thing, I can't sense any of the psychics onboard. That means that my telepathic scan is being blocked."

"That shouldn't be unexpected," the Light Elf commented nonchalantly. "After all, Paula is a telepath, and a powerful one at that."

"So am I," the Greater Mook retorted. "And I was rated as a higher level telepath than any other members of my kind. If anything, I should be able to block her, not the other way around. More importantly, is that I can't feel myself going up against the blocks. I only know that I'm being blocked because that craft looks too much like a UFO to be a coincidence, and the humans don't have any of our technology, save for Jeff Andonuts."

"Perhaps," the Light Elf replied. "But if it's not the girl, then who is it?"

"That's what I'm gonna find out," the Greater Mook answered as he revved the engines of the Fighter UFO and rocketed forward, taking them closer and closer to the Sky Runner II.

The Fighter UFO approached the Sky Runner II to get a more detailed scan of the craft. Upon getting within five miles of the craft, the Greater Mook activated his active sensor suite. He scanned the interior and found that it still only housed four lifeforms, and that these lifeforms were clearly human. Still, he did learn something valuable. This aircraft, or rather spacecraft, was designed for fighting. It was armed with two quad energy cannons, several Earth cannons from various retractable ports, two forward firing rocket pods, and a large number of air-to-air missiles carried inside an internal weapons bay. Despite its obvious ground attack capabilities and initial design, it seemed as if this craft had been refitted to be used in air superiority or at least an anti-aircraft role.

After getting the necessary scans, the Greater Mook said, "These scans would do wonders for our next generation Fighter UFO and Gunship UFO designs."

Upon saying this, he edged off the throttle to let himself glide back to his initial position relative to the Sky Runner. Unfortunately, he had been a little too bold, for the two quad energy cannons were now swiveling back to the rear and taking aim at the Fighter UFO. Even worse, was the fact that the Fighter UFO was in what Jeff called the Critical Hit Lane, the area where the fields of fire of the two quad energy cannons overlapped. The Greater Mook and the Light Elf could almost feel the satisfied smiles of Paula and Poo as they pushed the firing buttons of their cannons. Scarlet energy bolts erupted from the cannons and instantly crossed the seven mile distance between the two craft. The near light speed beams of energy streaked towards the Fighter UFO. The first blast missed a little high. The second one, however, was dead on. The second blast struck the cockpit window and caused it to shatter. The Greater Mook and Light Elf removed their restraints and went to dive from their seats, but that did them no good. The third beam lanced through the damaged cockpit window and directly struck the Greater Mook, instantly vaporizing him. The Light Elf was set ablaze as the incredible amounts of energy from the energy beam vaporizing the Greater Mook caused the air to catch fire. The rest of the beams speared the Fighter UFO, burning massive holes in the craft. One of the beams managed to puncture the fuel tank and set the fuel inside ablaze. The craft exploded in midair, spraying shrapnel all over the landscape as the dead wreck of the UFO fell back to the Earth, where it crashed and deformed until the metal broke apart, and the Fighter UFO was reduced to twisted, bent, and distorted wreck. The Sky Runner II continued on its journey, the pilots of the Fighter UFO never managing to transmit their data on the craft, nor picking up that the fifth passenger onboard was Giygas, and that he was helping the human forces about to attack the Starmen and their forces in New York in more ways than one.

Back in the remains of downtown New York City, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha waited patiently in the prefabricated garrison base for any information on the arrival of Ness or the human forces. His patience was soon rewarded as a voice crackled in over the radio. "Sir, this is Gamma Two of Aggressor Wing, reporting in. Something is going on. I am detecting over a dozen Earth aerofighters and gunships approaching. They appear to be headed… oh crap! They're locking on! Beginning evasive maneu…" The rattle of gunfire came in over the speakers. Several loud explosions then sounded, as did a muffled cry from the pilot. Then, all that came through the radio now was static.

The Starman Deluxe went over to the radar station and commanded his troops to give full reports of what they were seeing. So far, there was little to report. Their sensors were often times confused by the human stealth technology, especially if the humans were using psychics to disrupt the concentration of the Starmen.

"Sir, I've picked up something on scanners," a Starman called out to him. The Starman Deluxe rushed over to the radar station that the Starman was operating and looked at the screen. Almost three-dozen blips had appeared on radar and they seemed to be headed towards the City Smasher.

The Starman Deluxe went outside and directed his gaze high into the air as what turned out to be more than a few dozen missiles and rockets rocketed towards the City Smasher mothership. The Starman Deluxe was unconcerned, though. City Smashers were some of the most durable ships in the fleet. They were the ones that often had to wade through enemy defenses to attack their targets. They had some of the most powerful weapons in the fleet, but were limited and almost useless in fleet battles except in the carrier role, since they carried hundreds of Fighter UFOs and other aircraft. The Starman Deluxe scanned the warheads as they had passed by. There was no sign of them being nuclear in nature, so he merely laughed. Only the stronger nuclear warheads posed a threat to the City Smashers. These sub-nuclear weapons were no threat to the massive City Smasher's shields at all. Just as the missiles arrived, something happened that the Starman Deluxe did not foresee. The missiles passed through the shields unimpeded at all and impacted the sides of the City Smashers, striking the hull directly, gouging noticeable holes into the ship! First one, then two, then four, and later a dozen missiles hit the City Smasher. Each and every one of the missiles managed to hit its target and inflict significant hull damage to the ship. Fire and debris poured from each and every hole in the ship that had resulted from the missile strikes. The Starman Deluxe could even see some bodies jumping from the burning holes of the starship down to the ground, and to their deaths. Some of these bodies were on fire as well. The Starman Deluxe could hear the psychic screams of each and every one of the dead and dying, both onboard the ship, as well as those who had flung themselves from the starship.

For a moment, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha wondered if the ship's shields were even up. A quick scan told him that they were up, but they were now fluctuating due to the damage to the ship. Just then, a second wave of missiles streaked towards the ship. The Starman Deluxe telepathically sent a message to the ship's commander to adjust the shield frequency, but the message was received too late. One of the missiles slammed into the primary shield generator and obliterated it, taking a noticeable chunk out of the vessel with the impact. More and more missiles struck the ship, many of them far stronger than the earlier bombs referred to as MOABs by the Earth military forces. Each hit gouged another hole into the City Smasher, and rained more debris down on the forces of the Starmen that were beneath the vessel. Eventually a missile managed to strike the primary weapons battery and storage. The resulting explosion produced an overload in the weapons system and the main gun onboard the ship exploded spectacularly, spraying forth debris in all directions. Fatal damage had been inflicted on the ship.

The City Smasher was no longer able to stay aloft. The explosions of its primary weapon and the cooking of its ammunition, even in their disarmed state, was enough to cripple the craft. Smoke and flames spewed forth from each and every hole that had been blasted into the ship, and several more holes formed as fire melted its way through weaker sections of the hull and spewed forth from the ship as it crashed towards the Earth. The ship listed to one side as it crashed into the ground and crumpled into an unrecognizable wreck. A large series of explosions went off as the ship crashed into the ground; pieces of debris spewing forth in all directions. Neo Starman Deluxe could only watch in horror as the City Smasher had been smashed by the United States military forces. Just then, a thought entered his head. _Shield penetrators need to be at the same frequency as the shields that they are designed to penetrate in order to be effective._ After a moment, another thought came to him. _And there's no way that the Earth military forces discovered our shield frequencies on their own. They needed to have some help_. And upon that thought, the Starman Deluxe realized exactly what was happening, and what this truly meant. "No," he cried out in anguish, and shock. He did not realize yet that Giygas had given the humans the shield frequencies, though he figured that there was the potential of betrayal. Worse yet, was the fact that since the humans now had the shield codes of the City Smasher, they also had the codes for the rest of the fleet up in orbit! They could now launch a nuclear attack on the fleet and blow it out of space before the fleet would be able to respond.

He ran back inside and cried to the radio officer, "Contact our fleet in orbit right now on the emergency channel! I have to tell them of the betrayal!"

"We can't, sir," the Starman operating the radio station responded. "The fleet reported that it was under attack from Earth forces just before our communications were jammed by the human radios!"

"Then there's no way to alert the fleet to the fact that the humans have our shield frequencies," the Starman Deluxe said in horror. In a few short hours, the PSI Aliens had gone from being on the verge of victory over the human forces, to being dealt a grievous setback that would result in the destruction of the second major fleet sent against the Earth. Over five hundred full-scale capital ships were now sentenced to death. Even with the main fleet still far away, Giegue had expected to come in only having to perform mop up operations, not fight a functioning military. He extended his psychic senses to the sky in order to try to make contact with the rest of the fleet to try to warn them so that they could avert the impending travesty. Again, Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha was too late. Through the eyes of the fleet commanders, Starman Deluxes like himself, he witnessed the massacre unfold as Earth nuclear weapons passed through the shields of the fleet unobstructed and struck the hulls of the mighty warships directly, breaking them apart with single hits and little more than single hits. Tears streamed down the Starman Deluxe's face as the mighty war fleet of the PSI Aliens was being taken apart ship by ship by the human missiles launched against them. What was worse was that there was nothing he could do to help them and salvage the situation. The fleet was doomed to destruction. Just then he was interrupted by one of his officers.

"Sir, I am detecting over two hundred human aerofighters approaching from all directions, and over a hundred heavy bombers and aerial gunships as well!" the officer cried frantically as an alert alarm sounded from the scanner console. The attack on his forces directly had begun.

The Starman Deluxe extended his psychic senses beyond visual range and the image that came into his mind horrified him. From beyond the weapons range of his UFOs, the human fighters had already fired their first volley of missiles at the lead UFOs of his assault force. He tried to telepathically warn the pilots of the UFOs that there were missiles inbound, but he could not get through to them. He felt a psychic barrier appear around each and every one of the UFOs, bouncing his telepathic signal back to him. Someone was actively jamming his ability to communicate with his forces. No human had that level of telepathic power, not even the human girl in the Chosen Four. Not even a Starman Warrior or a Final Starman had that level of telepathy. That left only one possible person. "Giygas!" Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha seethed. Giygas had betrayed him after all! All of that talk about him only pretending to help the humans was merely a lie to get his forces into New York City so they could be slaughtered by the United States military forces. The sounds of explosions rang out as the missiles from the human jet fighters collided with the Fighter UFOs and detonated against their hulls. Massive holes were blown into the sides of the starships and those that were struck fell to the Earth before they could even turn and attempt to intercept the missiles that had been unleashed against them. Some of the UFOs were struck near their fuel tanks and the missile detonations punctured the fuel tanks, igniting the fuel onboard the UFOs, causing them to explode in midair. All the Starman Deluxe could do was scream in rage and despair. His scream was soon interrupted by another call by one of his officers.

"Sir, I am now detecting well over three hundred human tanks plus other fighting vehicles and troop transports," the Starman shouted over the din in utter disbelief.

The Starman Deluxe sank to his knees. What could he do? Even though he still outnumbered the human forces and the City Smasher had managed to deploy some of its UFOs, Transport, Fighter, Gunship, and man-sized, the humans had managed to launch a first strike and one of the greatest abilities of the Starmen, their telepathic powers, were being jammed, likely by Giygas. Even worse was the fact that he had long believed that humanity was on its last legs. Yes, they had focused their initial bombardments on the more heavily populated cities of the world, as well as the more highly populated continents, but they had mostly been dealt with. All that was really left were the western European powers, Israel, and North America, particularly the United States of America, which Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha began to realize was the most powerful country in the world.

More explosions sounded and he heard the roar of jet engines overhead. He looked out the window and found jet fighters and bombers soaring over the battlefield. Bombs were falling onto the forces of his Starmen, annihilating entire ranks of Starmen and other soldiers. Tears continued to roll down the Starman Deluxe's eyes at the horrifying scene that was being laid out before him. "What are your orders sir?" an officer asked frantically, snapping the Starman Deluxe out of his funk for a moment.

He looked over the reports that were streaming in. Over twenty of the Madnug mechs were already destroyed when the City Smasher fell on top of the secondary command outpost in the beginning stages of the attack. With most of the compliment of the City Smasher having been destroyed when the ship was taken down, they were now on their own and limited to the forces that were already present. That was, unless they could get help from some of the other assault forces in the U.S. or from the troops remaining on Mount Itoi. The first thing he did was to turn to the communications officer and yell, "Comm, contact Mount Itoi and the rest of our forces in the U.S.! Get them here at once!"

"I can't sir," the communications officer, a normal Starman, called out in reply. "Our communications are still being jammed!"

"Clear the jamming, then!" the Starman Deluxe commanded. "We've received reports form the front lines, why can't we call in for reinforcements?"

The Starman communications officer gave a low growl. Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha did not seem to understand that clearing such jamming was not a simple as giving an order. The humans were flooding the airways with signals of incredible strength. There was no way to be able to penetrate that amount of jamming and send a coherent message. And with their telepathy being blocked, there was no hope of contacting their forces psychically, either. That meant that they would have to make their stand here.

The Starman Deluxe then ordered, "Okay, forget the reinforcements for now. Tell the Starmen to raise counter shields over as many troops and mechs as possible. At least then we can hold out for a time. Maybe we'll get lucky and have the humans take themselves out of the fighting."

He waited for the communications officer to send out the order. The response from the officer that soon came surprised him and shook the Starman Deluxe to his core. "Sir, I am receiving reports from all of the Starmen present. They cannot raise their normal shields and counters at all. Only their psychic shields and psychic counter shields are rising."

"What?" the Starman Deluxe blurted, dumbfounded at what he had heard. He then tried to raise his own shield and found that he was unable to do so, either. He then raised his psychic shield and found that it was still effective, but that clinched it more than anything else. The only person who could jam him and the others like that was Giygas. The Starman Deluxe quickly knew what was to come. The plan must have been to get all of the forces that were gathering near New York concentrated into one area so they could be taken out by the humans. The gathering of other assault forces in the area was merely icing on the cake. This loss would prove devastating to the Starmen and their forces, and not just due to the troops that were lost, and the confidence boost that this victory would give the humans, but because this also meant that the defenses around the remaining Sanctuaries were not going to get reinforced until the main fleet arrived, which would not be for some time. It would give the human psychics a window in which they could claim each Sanctuary without having to face too much resistance. And with so much of the Starmen's equipment and manpower having been up in orbit with the rest of the fleet, things were about to get a lot more interesting.

It soon got worse as the officer soon made his next report. "Sir, it's not just their shields that they're having trouble using, it's their other psychic attacks as well!" he cried. This was even worse. If the Starmen could not use their psychic powers, then they would have little hope of ever beating the human soldiers since their psychic powers were the only thing that gave them an advantage over the humans. The Starman Deluxe grimaced. Of course, he should have seen this coming. All Starmen have a psychic signal built into them when they are born that allows any PSI Lord to jam their abilities to use their psychic abilities, or allows the PSI Lords to take direct control of them. They had never viewed this as a problem before since there had never been a PSI Lord that would betray his own people…until now.

He poured over the reports and glued his eyes to the sensor screens showing the blips of the Starman forces and the human forces, just barely inside sensor range. Many human fighters were firing new volleys of missiles at the UFOs and were making quick work of the UFOs due to their superior weapons range. The thing was that without their psychic abilities to fall back on, the humans had proven to be superior combatants to the forces of the PSI Aliens. Any force without a Starman or above, or who had a Starman or above killed, was at best equal to many of the human military forces. And the forces of the United States military were some of the best forces that were present on the Earth at this time, seemingly having suffered the fewest casualties of their last world war, despite the destruction of several of their major cities. The number of green blips, representing the Starmen and their forces that were disappearing was incalculable, while only a few red blips, representing the human forces, were disappearing. And if they were flying vehicles that were being destroyed, then there was still the chances that the pilots of those vehicles were still alive given how the humans put ejector seats on anything that flew, be it their fighters or their helicopter gunships.

Just then, a voice from one of the sensor stations chimed in. "Sir, we have another craft coming in. It appears to be one of ours by the look of the design," he said excitedly.

Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha took a look at the screen as a visual of the unknown craft came on. The unknown craft definitely looked similar to a UFO, but it was larger than a Fighter UFO, but slightly smaller than a Transport UFO, and it had quad energy cannons on its dorsal and ventral surface, along with some rocket pods on the front ventral surface of the hull. He then ordered, "Contact that craft immediately."

"Yes sir," the communications officer replied as he pushed a few buttons. After a second, he said, "Sir, I cannot make contact with that craft."

This surprised the Starman Deluxe and he then grabbed the microphone and yelled, "This is Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha to unknown craft. State your identification now, and help us deal with these human germs!"

The Starman Deluxe got his reply when a duo of Fighter UFOs that had gone out to cover the craft were immediately shot down as scarlet energy pulses lashed out at the craft, burning though their hulls and fuel tanks, causing the crafts to explode in midair. The slight hope that the Starman Deluxe turned into despair and horror as he realized that the occupants of that craft had to be the Chosen Four, and Giygas. He turned to a Starman Super that was trying to coordinate the defense of the base and their forces and he said, "Starman Super Zero-One-Alpha, take care of this for me."

The surprised Starman Super turned and reflexively replied, "Certainly, sir." He then asked, "May I ask where you are going?"

"To the Sanctuary," Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha replied.

"Why, sir?"

"To defend it," came the Starman Deluxe's only response. The Starman Deluxe then motioned for two Starman Warriors, Starmen with silver uniforms with spikes on their shoulders and helmets, just like Starman Deluxes, but with cylindrical hilts that would generate Beam Swords when activated, to follow after him as he left the base and raced towards the Sanctuary. He would make sure that at least he and the two Starman Warriors were there to defend the Sanctuary, since it did not seem as if the other troops would survive to do so.

Onboard the Sky Runner II, Jeff looked at his instruments as he guided the craft through the war zone. The U.S. military forces were giving much better than they received from the Starmen. Ness looked over the external sensor console and watched two more green blips, indicating the forces of the Starmen, disappear. Looking out the window, he witnessed two helicopter gunships fire anti-tank missiles at two monstrous mechas. These must have been the Madnugs that Giygas had told the party about during the trip. The missiles impacted the mechas in their chests and exploded, spraying debris and shrapnel all over the area. The missiles also blew massive holes into the mechs, which toppled over onto their backs, smoke issuing from the holes in the bodies, and the mouth of one of the mechs as well. The Madnugs did not only have to deal with the helicopters, though. A-10 Warthogs were also dealing death to the mechas, as well as the columns of tanks that were standing behind the main infantry lines from over six miles away from the mechs. They hurled munitions towards the Madnugs, using their much lower target profile to remain concealed behind fallen rubble. The shells streaked towards the Madnug mechs at blazing speed and struck the mechs in the center of mass. While one individual shell was insufficient to take down a Madnug, several direct hits proved to be more than sufficient. The return fire from the Madnugs was also wild, rarely managing to score a direct hit on the tanks. However, what the Madnugs lacked in accuracy, they made up for in raw firepower. The plasma bolts that they fired could instantly burn through the armor of a tank and any tank unfortunate enough to suffer a direct hit erupted in a plume of fire. Still, the Madnugs had no success countering the A-10s and the helicopter gunships that were sent against them. The A-10s and gunships decimated the Madnug squadrons with contemptuous ease with a combination of using their air-to-surface missiles, and their GAU-8 Avenger cannons to spray death at the massive mechs. By the time that the Sky Runner had appeared on the scene, there were only a couple Madnugs left. These quickly were quickly demolished by two A-10s that were flying towards the mechs from close to where the Sky Runner was flying. Two missiles streaked from the jets and zoomed in on the mechs. Before the Madnugs could raise the massive shields that they held in their hands to protect them from the fire of the fighters, the missiles struck their heads and exploded, blowing apart the heads of the mechs and decapitating the mechs. The smoking headless mechs fell over backwards and crushed several alien troopers that were trying to flee from the falling mechs.

Jeff looked back at Giygas, who was deep in meditation, and asked, "Are you doing alright back there?"

"I'm fine," Giygas responded. "Jamming the Starmen is not difficult for me. All I am doing is blocking their abilities to form shields and use their offensive psychic powers. They have a switch, you could say, that's genetically programmed into their DNA. It allows any PSI Lord to take direct control of a group of Starmen and use them as he or she sees fit. Using it is often taboo, but it has been done before. With this program, I can prevent a Starman of any rank from being able to use his psychic abilities, particularly his shields or other weapons."

"Can this program be altered?" Jeff asked.

Giygas nodded. "Yes, quite easily in fact. Chances are that once this battle is over, that my brother will use his power to neutralize the program, if he's smart, that is. This will be a one shot deal." Giygas was not sure about his brother's intelligence, though he believed that if Giegue did not do so, his father would. At least, he had managed to allow the humans an opportunity to destroy the orbiting fleet. He extended his telepathic senses above the Earth and found that he could find no trace of the people in the fleet. He took that to mean that the Earth's militaries had launched a successful assault on the PSI Alien fleet. That just left the main fleet to deal with.

Jeff took a look at the sensor and said, "Looks like we've found their main base. Whaddya say we end this battle a little early?"

Ness grinned as he unlocked the safeties on the weapons systems. He locked onto four Fighter UFOs and he opened fire with his missiles. The internal weapons bay opened and disgorged four air-to-air missiles form the bay. The missiles streaked towards their targets and upon impact, detonated. The missiles blew apart the Fighter UFOs with single hits, the smoking wreckage of the UFOs falling to the ground, raining down metallic debris onto the remaining Starmen and alien soldiers that were still fighting. Jeff then took the UFO closer in and looked over at Ness and said, "I think we found the prefabricated garrison base that the forces were organizing around."

"Then let's destroy it, now," Giygas said in a dark tone. Ness took the safeties off of the rocket launchers from the rocket pods and he tapped a few buttons and immediately, the rocket pods disgorged their rockets. Ten rockets flew towards the base at blazing speeds. The rockets struck the base and exploded, gouging massive holes in the base with each explosion. The main structures of the base could not survive the pounding and promptly collapsed in on themselves. Paula and Poo then rained destruction from the quad energy cannons and the GAU-8 Avenger cannons down on the makeshift landing field of UFOs. The few that remained were torn to shreds under the withering fire. Paula and Poo also took shots at the Starmen, noticing that there were some Starman Deluxes down on the ground as well. Carefully aiming at the Starmen, each shot that Paula and Poo fired scored a kill, the scarlet beams vaporizing the Starmen in single hits. Without their psychic abilities, the Starmen could only fire green energy beams at the attacking Sky Runner II and human aircraft that were attacking. The few beams that managed to strike the Sky Runner II were absorbed by the Sky Runner's shields. The return fire by the Sky Runner II, though, was far more devastating. After flying over the base, and leaving it in ruins, the Sky Runner II left the remainder of the fight in the very capable hands of the U.S. military. The soldiers gave a wave towards the Sky Runner II as it flew overhead and left the battlefield before continuing their assault on the remaining Starman forces.

As the Sky Runner II rocketed away from the scene, Ness looked back at Paula and Giygas and asked, "Can you sense the location of the next Sanctuary?"

Both Paula and Giygas nodded. "It's not too far ahead," Paula answered.

"There's a subway entrance a mile or so away from the Sanctuary. We can set down near the entrance and go to the Sanctuary on foot," Giygas suggested. None of the other occupants of the Sky Runner had any objections. With that, the group headed towards the closest subway entrance to the third Sanctuary location.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9:

The Sky Runner II descended from the sky until it was only a few dozen feet in the air. It slowly flew down one of the streets of downtown New York City, searching for the entrance to the subway system that would take them to the third Sanctuary location. As the teens were flying around the city, though, searching for the entrance to the subway system that they needed to find, Ness, Paula, and Poo looked out the cockpit window of the Sky Runner II and were in shock at the state of New York City. Debris from once tall skyscrapers littered the street. The once tall skyscrapers were reduced to meaningless metallic husks no more than a few stories tall in most cases. The entirety of down town New York was like this. They had heard from Flint that New York had been destroyed in the fighting, having suffered heavy damage in World War Three and later having been finished off, at least the downtown section of it, during the attack by the PSI Aliens. But it had not hit home just how much damage the city had suffered until they had seen the state of the city, first hand. Being from the Midwest, in Ness and Paula's case, and from another country in Jeff and Poo's case, New York had been far away from the teens, but it still resonated with them. It was a famous part of America. And now, its downtown area was little more than rubble. And from what Ness and the others had seen on the outskirts of the city, the more residential areas had fared little better.

"New York was one of the first cities that was attacked in your planet's third world war. Its downtown urban section had been destroyed by a terrorist attack that began the third world war. Yet despite its initial destruction, it had been in the process of being rebuilt when my people attacked and destroyed it, and the rest of the city," Giygas mused audibly.

Ness and Paula turned and looked over at Giygas. "How do you know this?" Ness asked.

"I have been on Earth for quite a while. I have often been keeping up with your planet's history since I would need to know about your planet in order to better be able to understand its people," Giygas explained. "This was ostensibly to allow us to destroy the humans while suffering minimal casualties ourselves. However, the more I studied your people, the more I came to be able to respect them as an opponent. Despite everything that had happened to humanity: the countless atrocities, the wars, conflicts of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, all culminating into Earth's third world war, and the massive loss of life that resulted, humanity never surrendered to its fate. They still strove for greatness. People still tried to help each other. Despite all of the evil out there, there were still good people who were willing to do the right thing: people who were willing to fight the good fight, and even die, for their beliefs."

"That goes both ways," Poo interjected. "There are people in the world who truly do believe in something that is evil, or are quite willing to use truly evil means to get what they want or what they see is right. Some may use religion, or the desire for freedom from oppression to justify horrible atrocities, despite the fact that said religion is actually peaceful and denounces such acts as evil, or said independence movement has just motives and beginnings, yet is perverted by those who carry out horrible atrocities in the name of said movement."

Giygas looked down at the floor sadly. "Indeed," he agreed. "That is the case with my people as well, though not due to any religion or wish for freedom from any other species. If anything, it stemmed from a desire for my people to protect themselves against potential aggressors. That, in and of itself is not wrong. What we did with it, however…well, you know the results of that already. My people viewed themselves as special due to their psychic powers. It was different from other races' magic or cosmic power. My people, we call ourselves the PSI Lords, truly do believe that it is our mandate to ensure that we are the only psychic species in the universe. From what I have managed to learn through research, at first, we were content being the only psychic species. Then, other psychic species came along and we were no longer unique. Oh, it was no problem at first. We were still the strongest psychics in the universe. But eventually, we began to resent the rise of other psychic species, and there was a growing worry that they could eventually surpass us in power. We then went about to make sure that no other species could ever challenge our power and threaten us…ever. My people believe that it is their duty to ensure that they are the only psychic race, and to ensure that they are, they go around searching the entire universe and exterminate any species that shows psychic potential, for fear that said race may eventually gain enough power to become a threat to us. Even if the species only shows signs of possibly having the ability to have psychic potential several generations down the line, my people will go in and exterminate them, simply because they believe that it is their duty, and destiny, to do so."

It was then that Paula asked a question. "Do your people have religion? Do they believe in God, or any god at all?

Giygas shook his head. "No, my people do not believe in gods of any sort. Or if they do, they don't let it affect their daily lives. The only 'religion' my people adhere to is the 'religion' that we are the strongest beings in the universe and there must be no one who can rise up to challenge our power. My people are old…very old. We are around one billion years old or so, and some even believe the PSI Lords to be among the first sentient species in our galaxy, if not the universe. No other species has our level of power. As such, for a while, some of my people even wondered if we _were_ gods. Many did not think anything of it, though, since they do not believe in gods. PSI Lords believe themselves to be the strongest of all. My people also do not believe in an afterlife, despite there being strong evidence, proof in my case, to the contrary; at least in terms of there being an afterlife. Heck, even when you factor in science, I still believe that science points there to being at least some sort of divine universal creator or guiding force. Despite my people's beliefs I, myself, do believe in God. I think that my mother, Maria, had something to do with that."

"What was Maria like?" Paula asked.

"She was not all that different from you," Giygas remarked. "She was very beautiful, especially as you humans would define beauty, kind, and still…happy, or at least content, in a way, despite her condition as being my people's prisoner. She did not take out any resentment she may have had towards her captors on me in any way. If anything, she was very careful to make sure that I was well treated, even by my own people. She stuck her neck out for me on more than one occasion. She also taught me about morality, the difference between good and evil, and doing the right thing. She passed her code of ethics and morals on to me, even though I abandoned it for a time after our fight. Her courage in the face of my people and her willingness to stand up to them was something that inspired me." Giygas then let his mind drift back to memories of Maria. In his heart, he had never stopped loving Maria. His love for her was the reason why he had been so greatly affected by her song when Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd had sung it to him during their first battle. It was also why he merely toyed with Ninten and his friends, as well as Ness and his party, while making sure that he did not inflict any permanent harm on them. It was also why he never made a move against humanity during the intervening years before the invasion, and why he had strongly implied to his brother that he had killed Ninten and his friends when in actuality, he had let them live and had not bothered them at all. And ultimately, his love for his mother was the reason that he was willing to betray his own people and help the humans fight off his race. "She is the reason why I am helping you now," he admitted.

"She must have been wonderful," said Jeff.

"She was," Giygas replied. "You knew her, Ness," Giygas said, turning to the telekinetic teen.

"Hey, that's right," Paula blurted, coming away from her station and coming over to Ness. "Didn't you take a class from her in how to better control your psychic powers?"

"Uh, yes," Ness said shyly.

"So Maria taught you, too, huh," Giygas said, smiling, facing Ness. "Well, she did a very good job. No other human save Maria has the power that you possess. In fact, you may even be a little bit stronger than she was."

Ness blushed at the statement. Maria had complimented him on his power, but he also remembered a look she had given him. It was almost as if she was expecting even more from Ness than he had demonstrated to her in that lesson. Ness had also wondered if he should have wished for the Sound Stone. He had a feeling that another Sound Stone would not be useful, though. He had already gone into his mind and cleansed it of the evil that the Universal Cosmic Destroyer Giygas had been using and manipulating. Still, there was that feeling in the back of his mind that his full potential had not yet been reached, that there was still another level that he could tap into to increase his own power. He stopped musing about what might be and began to focus on what was.

"How close are we to that subway entrance?" he asked.

Jeff returned his attention to the dashboard console and he punched in a few commands. "It looks like we're only a few minutes away from the entrance," he answered. "Better get your gear ready. We may still have a few enemies to deal with."

"Don't worry about any straggler Starmen, elves, or Faeries," Giygas assured them in a low, cold voice that was full of confidence. "I'll be pest control on this mission. Just make sure you don't approach the Sanctuary until I've dealt with any pests that we may come across."

"Sure," Ness responded uneasily. It was not every day that Ness was borderline intimidated by anyone, yet Giygas had nearly managed to do so. He began to think that Giygas was relishing this opportunity to fight any stragglers a little too much.

The group then went back to the cabin behind the cockpit and took hold of their items. Ness, Paula, and Poo slung their backpacks over their shoulders. Ness also grabbed his Legendary Bat and its bag and slung it over his shoulder. Poo did the same with his Sword of Kings. Ness also checked inside his backpack to make sure all of his items were secured. He found that they were. He took two Super Bombs out of his backpack, though, and put them in his pockets. He had a feeling that he might have use for them. Ness also got Jeff's backpack to take out to him. Once the party had gotten their equipment in order, they returned to the cockpit.

Back in the cockpit, Jeff was busily working in the pilot station. Ness quickly went over to join him. As he sat down, he looked at the scanners and noticed a large white mark on sensors. It located almost two miles ahead. "Looks like we've found our Sanctuary location guys, and girl," he added humorously. He made one more check. "Uh oh. It looks like there's something, or someone, else there too," he warned. "I'm picking up three lifeforms within a hundred yards of the Sanctuary location.

Giygas grinned. "Hopefully it's that stupid Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha," Giygas quipped, hoping that it was, indeed, that nuisance of a Starman Deluxe. He needed to make sure that the Starman and his cohorts did not survive to report on his treachery.

The ship was approaching the landing coordinates that would land them as close to the entrance to the subway system as possible. Jeff slowed the craft down until it was only traveling at ten miles per hour or so. It was as if he was searching for a parking space. The ship crawled forward until they found the subway entrance. Fortunately, it still looked to be in relatively good condition. Not only that, but there was an area that was relatively clear of rubble pretty close to the entrance to the subway tunnel. The Sky Runner II made its final approach towards the clear area a dozen yards or so away from the entrance. Sensors had indicated that aside from the three unidentified lifeforms, that there were no other lifeforms present, organic or otherwise. Jeff then carefully set down the Sky Runner II. As the craft descended, he extended the landing pads for the ship. The craft lurched as its pads made contact with the ground. The crew inside the ship was thrown off balance for a moment, but almost instantaneously regained their composure. After the landing process was complete, Jeff flipped a switch and set the Sky Runner to standby mode. He then rose from his seat and went back to join the others. When he arrived, Ness handed him his backpack. Jeff already had his Hungry HP Sucker and Gaia Beam pistol holstered at his hip and inside his jacket. Once the team was assembled, he went over to the boarding ramp and pushed the red button. The button lit as he pushed it and the hatch opened and the boarding ramp extended to the ground. Before leaving the ship, Jeff got a remote access key from a compartment near the boarding ramp. He and the others then disembarked. Once all five crew members were safely off the ship, Jeff pointed his remote at the ship and pushed a button. The boarding ramp immediately retracted and the hatch closed. The group then turned away from the ship and headed towards the entrance to the subway tunnel.

The Chosen Four and Giygas quickly made their way into the subway tunnels of New York City, being careful to not be spotted by any of the remaining UFOs or other Starman troops that were still fighting with the United States military forces. Inside the tunnel, they found an abandoned subway train parked near the terminal. Poo approached the track to see if it was electrified. He sensed that the track was not electrified. In fact, the power to this particular part of the subway system had gone out in the very first attack on New York that was the eve of World War Three. The party was quick to take care to not attract any attention to themselves. Paula used her telepathy to scan the tunnel for any lifeforms present. She sensed the three lifeforms that had shown up on the Sky Runner II's sensors earlier, but other than that, she only sensed some mice and rats. Still, the rats were being influenced by the presence of the PSI Aliens, despite their fleet being far away from Earth at the moment, and a group of rats came up and immediately attacked the party.

Ness responded by sending out a wave of telekinetic energy towards the rats. The rats ran into the invisible wall of energy and were thrown backwards through the air. They landed at various points, but soon seemed to be cured of the evil that had been controlling them and they scurried away from the children and Giygas.

The rest of the path towards the Sanctuary was uneventful. The teens said nary a word as they marched along the tunnel's walkway towards the Sanctuary location. Giygas had looked like he wanted to talk with the teens, but he had not tried to make conversation, and the rest of the group did not want to bother him. Despite all of the help that he had given them, they were still cautious of him. He was, after all, still the most powerful being present, and was quite capable of defeating them all in a battle should he decide to do so.

As they moved down the tunnel, Paula and Poo sensed that they were getting close to the Sanctuary. It was not long before the sensation began to increase. However, before the group managed to arrive at the Sanctuary, they found three other beings shrouded in shadow blocking their path. "Hold it right there," one of the beings said menacingly towards the group.

Giygas could already sense that the three were Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha and his two Starman Warrior bodyguards. The trio stepped out into the light before Ness and his party. All they saw were three Starman Deluxes standing before them, with two of them holding cylinder-like objects in their tentacles. While the faces of the Starmen were obscured by their suits' helmets, Giygas and the others could easily tell that they were seething with rage, particularly the one in the center who did not hold anything in his tentacle-like arms.

"You traitor," the center Starman Deluxe seethed. "You led us to the slaughter!"

Giygas merely smiled sweetly at the Starman Deluxe. He then turned to the teens, "Ness, you and the others should go on ahead to the Sanctuary," he suggested casually. "I'll handle this minor annoyance."

Ness looked over at Giygas, and then at the Starman Deluxes. He figured that Giygas could handle himself against a trio of Starman Deluxes. Before he could make a move, Giygas added, "Oh, after you defeat the Sanctuary Boss, please wait for me to rejoin you before stepping into the Sanctuary light."

Ness nodded. However, before he could leave, the Starman Deluxe sent out a chuckle for Giygas. "Heh, heh, heh. Do you really think that we'll let you get to that Sanctuary traitor?" Neo Starman Deluxe boomed.

Giygas stared at them. "Yes, I do," he replied casually. The Chosen Four then made their attempt to pass the Starman Deluxe and the two Starman Warriors, but the trio appeared directly in front of them.

"Where do you think you brats are going?" the Starman Deluxe asked menacingly. His visor was glowing an emerald green. Before he could make a move, he and the other Starmen found themselves sailing to their right and into a wall close to Giygas. Giygas looked over to Ness and called, "Go."

Ness nodded and he, Paula, Jeff, and Poo made a dash towards the Sanctuary, which they figured to be only couple hundred yards away. As they started their run, they could already see a flicker of light shining in the distance.

A ways behind them, though, Giygas approached the Neo Starman Deluxe and his Starman Warrior cohorts with a grin on his face. He cracked his knuckles while approaching the Starmen, who were slow to rise. "Come on," Giygas derided. "You're the next generation of Starman Deluxe and the new Starman Warriors. A simple shove into a wall shouldn't have knocked you guys out this fast."

The three Starmen then rose to their feet. "Better," Giygas said with mock approval. He continued to near the trio.

The two Starman Warriors then stepped out in front of their master and took the cylindrical devices from their hips and pointed them at Giygas. The two Starmen pushed the gray buttons on their cylindrical devices and out sprang two green blades of energy at least a meter long. A snap and a hiss accompanied the activation of the blades, along with a low thrum afterward that reverberated throughout the tunnel near the fight. The two warriors then pulled their blades back and held them close in a defensive stance, waiting for Giygas to make the first move.

Giygas disappointed them, however, and merely stood still. The two Starman Warriors pointed one of their tentacle-like arms right at Giygas and pulled up the tip of their tentacles, as if motioning for Giygas to approach. Giygas echoed their own movements, motioning for them to make the first move. To Giygas it did not matter who made the first move, those Starman Warriors were going to die anyway. Giygas just wanted to have a little fun with them. The Starman Deluxe, however, was getting impatient.

"What are you bozos standing around for? Attack him already you cowards!" he cried out to his two bodyguards.

"They're not cowards," Giygas said, making his voice sound as if he had a shred of sympathy for their plight. "They just don't want to die meaningless deaths."

However, while Giygas was chastising the Starman Deluxe, the two Starman Warriors charged right for Giygas faster than the eye of a normal human could track, holding their Beam Swords high. They almost instantaneously arrived at Giygas and went to bring their blades down on the PSI Alien. Unfortunately, Giygas was much faster than they were, and he had seen the attack coming from ten parsecs away. He held up his hands and caught the blades in each of his hands. With a single psychically augmented jerk of his arms, he pulled the blades out of their arms, which automatically caused the blades to shut down. While he was defending from the attack by the Starman Warriors, though, Neo Starman Deluxe decided that this was the perfect time to unleash a blast of PSI Thunder Omega on his renegade master. Electric sparks crackled around his tentacles and upon stretching out his tentacle-like arms, two massive lightning bolts erupted from his tentacles. However, the Neo Starman Deluxe had not learned his lesson from his previous encounter with Giygas. His lightning struck Giygas's shield without even causing it to flare into existence. Only this time, Giygas had activated his standard counter shield. The lightning struck the shield surrounding Giygas and stopped for a second before being reflected back at the Starman Deluxe. The two lightning bolts rocketed towards the Starman Deluxe and struck him squarely in the chest. Giygas, however, had absorbed enough of the energy from the bolts so that the return strikes would not kill the Starman Deluxe. He had other plans for the foolish Starman Deluxe.

While the Starman Deluxe had foolishly unleashed his attack on Giygas, the PSI Alien had decided that it was time to take the fight to the Starman Warriors. The Starman Warriors were not cooperating since they were trying to engage in a ranged battle. The two Starmen unleashed streams of PSI Fire Omega at Giygas, but they were quickly reflected back at the Starman Warriors by Giygas's reflector shield. The psychic fire, however, was not powerful enough to kill the Starman Warriors with one hit, though. That did not bother Giygas in the slightest. If anything, he was more pleased right now with the fact that he could still fight them. He quickly drew in the two Starman Warriors with his telekinesis and suspended them in the air within arm's reach. He then raise the two deactivated hilts of the Beam Swords and pressed the business ends of the hilts against their heads. He grinned as he pushed their activation studs and a snap-hiss sounded as the two green energy blades sprang to life, impaling the two Starman Warriors through their heads. Giygas then tilted the blades downward slightly and formed a force field around the blades so that the Starman Warriors could merely slide off the blades, rather than having the blades cut through their heads. Giygas then turned towards the Starman Deluxe, who was slowly rising after being hit by his own attack.

The Neo Starman Deluxe glared at Giygas as the PSI Alien approached. "I trusted you," he hissed. "Even though I saw you consorting with the enemy, I believed you when you said that you were actually still serving us. Even when the other Starman Deluxes were hesitant to come to my call, I personally vouched for your loyalty and trustworthiness. How could you do this to me? How could you betray us?"

Giygas gave an eerie grin. "With ease," he answered.

"You were the strongest of your kind," the Neo Starman Deluxe continued. "You had power. We would have backed you up if you made a move against Giegue. Even your own father would have supported you. Why do this to us? What are you thinking? Do you really think that this plan of yours will be successful?"

"Yes," Giygas answered curtly. This caught the Starman Deluxe off guard.

"How?"

"By killing you and your cohorts here, the only ones, make that _one_ that knows of my betrayal of your forces. I'll just sidle up next to Giegue and kill him. Then I'll cause the rest of the main fleet to self-destruct."

"You're mad!" the Starman Deluxe declared. "They're your own people!"

"They are murderers. They are genocidal maniacs whose only purpose in life seems to be destroying other races," Giygas retorted, pointing his finger at the Starman Deluxe. "And you are among their most powerful elite soldiers," Giygas finished. With that, Giygas used his telekinesis to draw Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha towards him. Giygas then formed an electrical field around his left arm and straightened his fingers until his hand partially resembled a dagger. As soon as the Starman Deluxe was within range, Giygas jabbed with his left hand, and thrust his hand through the heart of the Starman Deluxe and out his back. The Starman Deluxe went limp and slumped over on Giygas's arm. Giygas them pulled out his hand and a ball of fire soon formed on the end of his hand. He then unleashed a vicious stream of flame at the Starman Deluxe. The flame engulfed the Starman Deluxe and he immediately caught fire. Giygas released the dead and burning Starman from his telekinetic hold and let him fall to the ground, where he remained, burning until he was reduced to ashes. Giygas then quickly cremated the Starman Warriors. Once the battle and disposal of the bodies was completed, Giygas rushed off to chase down Ness and the others, hoping that they left a little bit of the Sanctuary Guardian for him to fight.

While Giygas was playing around with Neo Starman Deluxe Alpha and his cohorts, Ness and the other members of the Chosen Four were running towards the Sanctuary light that was near a wall. Next to the wall was a smaller tunnel capable of fitting a subway train. It did not take them long to arrive at the swirl of white light. When they arrived, they heard a child-like masculine voice greet them. "So, you finally came. I see that Giygas isn't here with you. That's unfortunate, since you'll be needing his assistance. If I sense the energy in your stones correctly, you're at the third Your Sanctuary location. However, now this one is mine. Take it from me, if you can…"

"We will," came the response from the four teens as the swirl of light flashed and they noticed a figure emerge from the light. Upon emerging from the light, they saw a yellow and brown striped rat that was almost as large as Ness. It had a tail that was shaped in the form of a lightning bolt and was black except for a speck of yellow at the end. The rodent buckteeth were quite prevalent and were hanging from the upper part of the rat's jaw. Two black circles on his cheeks framed the rat's face. The fur of the rat was quite disheveled and it looked as if it had undergone an unnatural mutation. Its beady eyes eyed each of the teens and it gave off a laugh.

"These are the humans that are going to claim _my_ Sanctuary?" it proclaimed in disbelief. "This is gonna be fun," he chortled. The Electric Sewer Rat of Doom's cheeks began to crackle with electricity from the two black spots on his cheeks. Ness and the others figured that that was where the rodent stored its electricity. Ness could not help but think back to the game of Pokémon and how much this rodent resembled a Pikachu, a much grimmer, darker, and grittier Pikachu, but a Pikachu nonetheless.

The Electric Sewer Rat of Doom then opened the battle by unleashing a vicious lightning bolt at Ness. Ness merely stood there and let the attack strike him, since he was wearing the Franklin Badge. The lightning bolt struck Ness squarely in the chest and a familiar metallic clang sounded as the lightning was reflected back at the rat by the Franklin Badge. The creature's eyes went wide in shock as its own attack was reflected back at the beast. The lightning struck the rat squarely in the abdomen, but it only pushed the creature back a few feet. Just as with Pikachu, the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom was quite resistant to electrical attacks.

Seeing that, Paula and Poo decided to see if the rat was resistant to other types of attack. Paula then powered a blast of PSI Freeze Omega, with Poo powering a blast of PSI Freeze Gamma. Snowflakes of freezing psychic energy formed in front of the hands of the two elemental PSI users. Once the attacks were at their full power, they unleashed their snowflakes towards the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom. The Electric Sewer Rat of Doom was too slow to react to the psychic attacks and it was unable to dodge the snowflakes of psychic energy. Each snowflake struck the rat and exploded, showering the rat with a spectacular display of snowflakes, and covering it with snow and ice. However, despite being hit by two ice-based attacks, the rat remained unfrozen. However, due to the snow an ice now covering its body, the rat's speed and agility was significantly reduced. This was demonstrated when the tail of the rat began to glow a bright silver. It ran towards the closest teen, Ness and tried to bash him with a whip from his tail. Unfortunately, the decreased speed of the rat's attack meant that Ness managed to dodge the ensuing tail whip with contemptuous ease. While Paula and Jeff backed away, Ness and Poo drew out their bat and sword and got in close to fight with the rat. Poo took a swipe with his sword and managed to scratch the fur of the rat, taking off some hairs, but the rat was able to jump away from the strike so that he only lost a few hairs, rather than any blood. Unfortunately, the rat jumped right into a mighty swing from Ness. Ness bat connected with the rat's abdomen and a mighty crack sounded. The rat suddenly squealed as several of its ribs had been shattered by Ness's swing. The swing of the bat also sent the rat flying backwards through the air. It landed in a heap close to the swirling light. The rat was slow to get up, but the teens did not let up on it.

Jeff soon entered the fray by pulling out his Hungry HP Sucker and a green swirling beam erupted from the barrel of the pistol. The beam from the Hungry HP Sucker struck the beast in the head and drained a great deal of the creature's energy. The Electric Sewer Rat of Doom felt weak in the knees and fell to the ground, barely able to move. Still, the rat was able to attack. He would not go down without taking at least one of the teens with him.

Knowing that Ness was not a viable target, the rat focused his sights on Jeff. Realizing that Jeff was the only one on the team that was not psychic, he believed that he would be the easiest to take down. The rat also soon felt the snow and ice begin to melt and some of his mobility returned. Still, he had to deal with those broken ribs, which still hampered his movements, as well as his failing health. Still, he had the strength to launch one last attack at Jeff and the rest of them. He powered a massive electric attack that he called Thundershower. He then unleashed Thundershower on the entire party. Massive bolts of lightning issued from the cheeks, tail, mouth, and other parts of the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom's body. The lighting zeroed in on each and every one of the heroes. Paula and Poo were the first to be hit by the blast and electricity arced all across their bodies. Since they were psychics, though, they were able to limit the damage dealt by the attacks by channeling the energy away from their bodies and radiating it away. Still, they both fell to their knees when the attack was over, electricity still sparking across their body. Jeff suffered far more than the others, though. Since he was not psychic he was unable to channel any of the energy and radiate it away from his body. He did not have any of the luxuries that the psychics did, so when he was hit, lightning arced all over his body and severely burned him. He gave out a cry as he was struck by the rat's lightning. The only reason that he was not charred beyond recognition, or beyond the ability for Ness or Poo to revive, was due to the fact that he was wearing his Kevlar B shirt, jacket, and pants. Even with that attack, and the fact that his Kevlar clothing was now in tatters, Jeff was not instantly killed, though the attack did inflict fatal damage to his body. Jeff fell to the ground and writhed in agony as the attack arced across his body, groaning. As for Ness, as the rat knew, when the lightning storm struck Ness, a metallic clang rang out, signifying the reflecting of the lightning by the Franklin Badge. The lightning bolt rocketed back towards the rat and drilled him in the head. Being resistant to lightning attacks, though, the rat was still alive, and it was still ready to fight.

Jeff, however, was not dead yet. After the attack was finished and as he collapsed to the ground, he used the last of his strength to take aim with the Hungry HP Sucker. He slowly managed to level the gun at the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom and when he was sure of his shot, he pulled the trigger with a great deal of effort. A green swirling beam of energy was emitted from the gun and it struck the rat squarely in the chest. The beam drained a large amount of energy from the rat and transferred it back to Jeff. Jeff felt a wave of life-restoring energy wash over him and he soon felt a little stronger. While he was still quite weak from the attack, he was no longer in danger of dying. Not only that, but when he rose, he noticed that the rat had fallen to the ground and had ceased moving.

After the rat had fallen, Ness went over to Jeff and used Lifeup to restore Jeff's health. Once that was finished, the quartet focused back on the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom and went over to the fallen rat. As they approached, a flash of energy erupted from the rat's body and engulfed it. The entire body of the rat now glowed a bright white and the teens had to look away to avoid being blinded by the light. The form of the rat was beginning to change. Paula and Poo also sensed something else. In addition to the form of the rat changing, the creature's energy was also changing as well. No longer did the energy that emanated from the creature feel cold and dark. Instead, it felt warm. The teens then realized that the defeat of the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom meant that it was now changing back to what it had originally been. It was likely that Giygas's people, possibly Giygas himself, had turned a normal animal into this monstrous creature.

Eventually, the glow died and the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom was no more. Instead, a yellow mouse with brown stripes on his back, a tail that resembled a lightning bolt, and two red sacks on its cheeks for storing electricity now stood before the teens. It was also a lot smaller now, only standing a little over one foot in height. It looked up at the teens and spoke in a child-like voice, "Pi-ka-chu."

Ness and Paula were dumbfounded. This electric mouse _was_ a Pikachu from the Pokémon games. Jeff also took a close look at the creature, which he now dubbed _Pikachu_, inwardly wondering whether or not this was one of the bioweapons that was used in World War Three or by those loyal to Giygas.

It was then that Giygas came up from behind the party. The Pikachu took one glance at Giygas and cried in absolute terror, "Pikaaaa," and fled from the party down the tunnel. Giygas stepped forward and commented, "I guess you managed to beat the Guardian without me."

The others nodded. While she did not say anything, Paula was glad to have been able to defeat a Sanctuary Guardian without killing it. With the Sanctuary Guardian defeated, the group made their way towards the swirl of light directly in front of them. After they were a few feet away, Ness and Jeff stopped. Paula, Poo, and Giygas stepped forward into the light. Once they stepped into the light, old memories came flooding into their minds, and another melody sample played in their minds. Giygas was beginning to piece the melody together. It was the melody of the song that Maria used to sing to him when he was a child. Also, he realized that the memory he had experienced, a gray wall, was of a time when Maria was singing to him in order to calm him down after he had gotten unruly. He then heard the words in the melody of the Eight Melodies, "…_give it some words_…" In time, the memory faded and he found himself back in the subway tunnel. Knowing that there was nothing more to do here, he walked back over to Ness and Jeff. Paula and Poo joined him shortly after and then the quintet trekked back through the tunnel and to the Sky Runner II.

The trek back through the tunnel was uneventful. After the defeat of the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom, the rest of the mice and rats wanted no business of Ness and the others at all. Upon sighting Ness, they scurried back into their holes in walls or merely ran as far as they could as fast as they could. Giygas smiled at the sight of the fleeing rats. They were small creatures compared to him. They would not have made decent forces for the PSI Aliens at all.

The group eventually arrived at the exit to the subway tunnel and walked back out into the open. The night sky looked beautiful as the moon and the stars lit up the sky. Ness and the others noticed that there were no more explosions sounding, and that the only light besides the stars and moon were the fires that were still burning from the wreckage of the UFOs, Madnug mechs, and from the ruined City Smasher. As the group approached the Sky Runner II, Jeff whipped out his remote key, issuing a silent prayer of thanks that it had not been destroyed by the Electric Sewer Rat of Doom's Thundershower. He pressed the button and the boarding ramp of the craft lowered, allowing the quintet access to the ship. The group immediately boarded the ship and upon boarding, Jeff went over to the panel near the hatch and pushed the red button, retracting the ramp.

Onboard the ship, the next item on the teens' agenda was to discuss where they would go from here. Before they could start discussing where they would go next, Giygas went over to the pilot's console and activated the map program. He then proceeded to push a few buttons on the console. It was clear to the others that he was punching in coordinates to the navigational computer of the Sky Runner. Jeff approached him while he was punching in the coordinates and asked, "What do these coordinates lead to?"

"The lost city of Atlantis," Giygas replied. "It is the location of one of the Sanctuaries. And as I told you earlier, the Guardian is a merman that is loyal to my people. It is also under the sea, so I hope you brought your diving suits."

"I brought them aboard along with the rest of the cargo and provisions," Jeff told him. "The suits are in the back cabin. However, I only had suits made for humans, so I don't know if any of our suits will fit you."

"That's no problem," Giygas said. "I have my own ways of surviving the environment of Atlantis."

Jeff then went over to the others, who had been listening in on the conversation and asked, "Any objections to Atlantis being the next Sanctuary we liberate?" When there were no objections, he said, "Okay then, Atlantis it is." With that, the Sky Runner II lifted off and proceeded to make its way towards the ocean.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Giegue looked over the reports coming in from the fleet and listened to the transmissions coming over the comms from his chair on the bridge of his flagship. He listened as the captains of the fleet frantically screamed orders and told informed him as to the status of the fleet. "Their missiles are passing through our shields! We're…bzzzt." "The remnants of the second fleet have already been wiped out! Our fleet has already lost seventy-five vessels. My powers, there goes another one! And another! Help…bzzzt." That transmission abruptly ended in static as well.

Giegue turned to face the sensor station and witnessed what the fleet captains were already confirming by their screaming and cries for help. Humanity was launching an attack on their starships. And the entire Third Fleet was getting annihilated. In addition to the loss of the small Fourth Fleet, which only had a couple dozen starships, albeit powerful starships, and with the current loss of the Second Fleet, which consisted of a large number of small and medium capital ships, but only a few heavy cruisers and battleships. The First Fleet, which was the main fleet, was over three times the size of the other three fleets combined, and consisted of only the best starship designs, and had over five hundred battleships alone, and one massive super flagship. Only the first fleet had any PSI Lords present as captains or crewmembers. Not only that, but only a few other ships in the entire fleet besides the flagship had any PSI Lords onboard at all. The PSI Lords had suffered a great number of losses since they had first encountered humanity more than a century and a half ago. These losses came from numerous sources, but mostly from the Universal Cosmic Destroyer Project, which Giygas had been the focal point of. With the destruction of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer and all of the PSI Lords that had been fused to Giygas in the creation of the Embodiment of Evil, the PSI Lords were now an endangered species. If the main fleet were destroyed with no survivors, then their entire species would be destroyed, and all that would remain of their empire would be any straggling ships that were under the command of any Starmen or Faeries that had not caught up with the rest of the fleet. That was the real reason why Giegue had sent the Vanguard Fleet and the other two assault fleets ahead of the Main Fleet first. He wanted the fleets to wipe out all meaningful resistance to his forces before risking himself and his fleet. While he had believed that humanity was worthless and could not offer any resistance, his father had insisted that he send the other fleets in first, since Giygas was already on the ground.

Giegue continued to watch the monitor as the rest of the Third Fleet was wiped out by the humans' nuclear attack. He listened to the last transmissions of the forces, who were still trying to shoot down the incoming nuclear weapons and any Earth Space Planes that were launching nuclear attacks against the fleet. The stragglers lasted a bit longer, since the humans must have run out of the shield penetrator missiles and had to use conventional nuclear missiles, but several of the missiles launched were megaton level missiles, and they were horrifyingly effective against even the larger ships in Giegue's fleet, whose most powerful blasts were only low double-digit kiloton in power. Only the Flagship produced energy beams that rated in the low megaton level. What Earth's military forces lacked in technology, they more than made up for in power. And with the Third Fleet now destroyed, the ground forces were cut off from any orbital support. It would now be much easier for Earth to be able to root out the rest of the Starmen on Earth and attack them, taking back vital military bases and weapons. Giegue grimaced at that thought.

Giegue then thought of what he would have to do to make sure that what happened to Third Fleet did not happen to his fleet as well. First off, he would have to learn how the humans had managed to discover the shield frequencies of his ships. Though, he already had a feeling that he knew how they managed to get the shield frequencies and codes. Second, he would have to order the rest of his ships to change their shield frequencies, possibly telling the other captains to confer with each other so no two ships had the same shield frequency. Third, he decided that he was now directly in charge of everything, no middlemen. Once he had conferred with Miridhel, he would send the signal to Luna Base, Mount Itoi, and to the other smaller bases and hideouts that his forces had on Earth. It seemed as if they would have to take out Earth the old fashioned way once they arrived and psychically bombard the planet from orbit until nothing remained. With that thought, Giegue turned to the captain of the ship, an older PSI Alien, and said, "Take over for me. I'll be in my personal chamber." Giegue then left the bridge before the captain could get into his chair.

Inside his quarters, Miridhel waited for her master to come so she could wait on his pleasure. In the meantime, though, she gazed into the crystal ball on the stand next to the bed. She quickly saw the destruction of the Third Fleet and frowned. She also began to feel a little wary, since she knew that when Giegue entered that he would be in a foul mood. Indeed, when the door slid open to his quarters, Giegue stormed in with a scowl plastered on his face. He immediately went over to the beautiful High Star Elf and asked in a hard, commanding tone, "What do you see?"

Miridhel looked into the globe and responded, "I see many things. First off, I have seen the destruction of your fleet. I also saw the destruction of many of the patrolling assault forces in North America in an ambush set up by the United States military in the remains of the city they call New York. Close to a quarter million troops were lost in the fighting, including the second City Smasher that was flying over North America." She stopped there to let everything settle in.

Giegue only seethed even more at that news. "Can't you give me any good news for once?" he roared towards the young-looking elf.

Miridhel quickly glanced into her ball again. "I see that our forces are defeating the Chinese military forces in battle as of yet, but it is still relatively close."

"What about Russia?"

Miridhel shook her head. "Our forces there were defeated and have been forced to retreat. But they did inflict significant casualties on the Russian ground and air forces."

Giegue made note that he would have to send the forces that were retreating in Russia to assist in the battle against China. "What about our forces in the country known as Israel?"

"They are fighting to a stalemate, so far," the High Star Elf replied. "However, many of the most probable futures indicate that without orbital support, that Israel will emerge victorious against our forces there." She waited for that to sink in before she said anything more. "My Lord, just so you know. I have also scanned to see whether or not Giygas is working for us, or has betrayed us. So far, the future is uncertain on the subject."

Giegue nearly struck her at the mention of his older brother's name. "What the hell does that mean?" he roared.

Miridhel, while losing patience with her master's anger management problems, spoke submissively when she replied, "It means that there are almost literally an equal number of futures that show Giygas betraying you, as well as those that show Giygas remaining loyal."

"Well shoot those that have Giygas staying loyal," Giegue boomed. "You saw the destruction of our fleet. There's no way my older brother is still loyal to us!"

"I agree," Miridhel nodded. "Even I cannot fathom why the present and future is so uncertain with regards to Giygas's loyalties. Still, it is what it is."

Giegue then gave a sigh and sat in bed. Miridhel looked up at Giegue and asked, "Is there anything else that I can do for you, my lord?"

Giegue grinned. "Sure there is. You can wait on my pleasure." He motioned for the High Star Elf to join him in his bed. She did so, and then waited on his pleasure, carrying out each and every one of his orders.

Back on Earth, Ness and the others were flying out over the Atlantic Ocean, over the Bermuda Triangle, in the Sky Runner II. They had been flying for close to two hours straight, with Giygas at the helm, and there was no sign of the lost kingdom of Atlantis anywhere, though they figured that there would not be since it was under the ocean. Still, even the sensors were having a difficult time pinpointing the kingdom's location. Ness went back into the back cabin, where Paula and Poo were currently sleeping, and checked in the storage hold for the Atmospheric Diving Suits. Jeff was making some last minute modifications to the suits and to the air tanks that fit on the backs of the suits. Ness went over to him and asked, "Almost done?"

Jeff glanced up from his work and nodded. "So, what will these suits do once you're finished working on them?" Ness asked.

Jeff answered, "They'll be able to tie into the life support systems onboard the Sky Runner II. That means that you all should have a virtually unlimited air supply down to a certain depth. I'm still trying to connect the air tubes from the Sky Runners II's cargo bay to the suits, themselves. The suits will also be able to withstand the pressure of being under over a thousand meters of water as well without any negative side effects."

"Will that be good enough?" Ness asked in a concerned voice. "I hear that the Atlantic Ocean has an average depth of well over two thousand meters."

Jeff shrugged, a little embarrassed. "It is if Atlantis is close enough to the shores of any of the countries of the Atlantic Ocean. If not, we're in trouble since this is as advanced as I can make the suit. Not to mention the problem with air. If your air supply gets cut off and you have to swim back up to the surface, let's just say I hope you can teleport."

Ness nodded in agreement. He then looked over at the door that led to the cockpit. "What about Giygas?" he asked. "He's likely going to need a suit to survive in the water, too."

"Giygas said that he didn't need one," Jeff shrugged. "I guess his psychic powers allows for him to survive such deep sea pressures and gather his own air from the water."

With that, Ness then returned to the main cockpit and took his station in the copilot's seat next to Giygas. Giygas was completely silent as the group headed further and further out over the Atlantic Ocean. The ship quickly turned to its right and headed south. Giygas turned back to Ness and suggested, "Perhaps you and Jeff should get some rest. It'll be a couple of hours before we're over Atlantis. Atlantis is underwater and you are all far more vulnerable underwater than you are on land. You'll need to be at your best if you wish to beat Chimeron."

"I know," Ness said.

"Don't worry, Ness. I can pilot this ship alone," Giygas assured him.

Not too long ago, Ness would have been suspicious of that remark. However, given what the team had recently been through and how he had helped the United States military destroy a major surface assault force of Starmen, and how he had given the Earth the shield frequency for the assault fleet in orbit which allowed Earth to launch a nuclear strike that destroyed the entire fleet and left some nuclear weapons over for whatever else the PSI Aliens would send at them had eased Ness's feelings towards Giygas. He had to admit that Paula was right about Giygas. He truly did seem like he was on their side in this. With that, he went back into the cabin and lied down on the sleeping pallet next to Paula's. Before he fell asleep, he took one look at Paula and smiled affectionately.

An alert chime sounded approximately two hours after Ness had fallen asleep. The chime jolted Ness out of his sleep and he quickly rose from his small sleeping pallet. He was quickly joined by Paula and Poo as they too awakened to the sound of the chime. The three headed out of the cabin area and went into the cockpit. Sitting at the pilot's station was Jeff, while Giygas sat at the copilot's station. Giygas looked back at the psychic teens and casually told them, "We're here."

"Already?" Paula asked with a long yawn and stretch.

Giygas nodded. "Our instruments indicate that Atlantis is on the seafloor about a thousand or so meters below." He then paused before continuing. "Just so you all know, while we aren't likely to face any Starmen down there, there are still powerful creatures that you'll want to be aware of. There merpeople down there do have some advanced technology and magic as well. They are not pushovers Also, the Sanctuary Guardian, Chimeron, is a very powerful magic user. As such, psychic shields will be ineffective against the attacks and powers of Chimeron and his minions. Normal shields will have to be used instead."

"There's another issue," Jeff added once Giygas was finished. "One of us will have to remain up here to check on you guys while you're underwater. It can't be Giygas, Paula, or Poo, so that only leaves me and Ness. Since Ness is a powerful psychic and will be needed down in Atlantis, that leaves me. I'll remain behind to keep track of you and make sure nothing goes wrong on this end."

The others had no real problems with that. Jeff proceeded to go over the plan for the drop with the teens. "Okay, I'll lower the Sky Runner II until it's almost touching the ocean water. You'll be inside modified Atmospheric Diving Suits. These suits have been modified to be able to withstand the pressure of being more than one thousand meters deep. That's about the depth of Atlantis, here." Paula then raised her hand. "What is it?" Jeff asked.

"What about air?" Paula asked. "The dive will take quite a while, as will the search for the Sanctuary."

"Yeah," Jeff noted. "As for the air, your primary means of air will be a hose that's connected to the life support systems here onboard the Sky Runner II. Should you need to disconnect the hose, or it gets disconnected during battle, there are air tanks on the back of your suits. They should last for about two hours or so before you run out of oxygen. I've also added sound barriers and dampeners in your suits just in case the enemy also uses sonic weapons." Before leading them to the cargo bay, Jeff added, "Oh, one more thing. Keep a shield up at all times and be ready for anything. If these suits tear, then you're going to be on your own unless you get out of there."

Once the explanation was finished, Jeff led the party back to the cargo bay of the craft. The cargo bay was larger than the bridge and the rear cabin combined. Besides those areas and the weapons bays, the cargo bay took up most of the ship. That said; it was still quite small as cargo bays went. Still, there was room enough for the three Atmospheric Diving Suits that Jeff had managed to rig together. There were also several other boxes that likely contained several other weapons and items. Before directing the teens to get inside their suits, Jeff gave them one last bit of information.

"Oh, one last thing," he added. "You won't be able to take your weapons or equipment with you, save for your Sound Stones. You'll be restricted to your psychic powers, and these mini-torpedo launchers and spear guns that I managed to rig together while you were resting."

Jeff then proceeded to lead them to a crate that contained, among other things, spear guns and mini-torpedo launchers. Ness and the others went over and examined the equipment. There were also packs that contained spare spears for underwater use so that they would not be restricted to being one-shot weapons. The mini-torpedo launchers each had magazine that contained two torpedoes, each. There were no reloads for the torpedoes, though, so Ness realized that they would have to pick their targets very carefully. That said; chances were that they would be relying on their psychic powers a lot down there for the fighting. And by they, he meant Paula and Giygas since both he and Poo would be the designated healers for the duration of the mission.

Before putting on the suits or getting the weapons, Ness, Paula, and Poo received instruction booklets on how to operate the machinery from Jeff. They spent the next hour going over everything, making sure that they could recite every line in the booklet in their sleep and apply it to practice. Once they were finished going over the material, they went over to put on their ADSs. After they had changed and put on their suits, Jeff went over to the radio and asked them, "Can you breath alright?"

Each of the teens gave him a thumbs up. That also answered the question of whether or not they could hear him. "Okay, say something for me," he told them.

"Testing, testing, one, two, three," Ness said, which Jeff could hear. He gave Ness a thumbs up.

"I'm looking forward to this dive," Paula said cheerfully. Jeff smiled. "I hear you," he responded. "I wish I could go too, but I'm needed up here."

Finally, Poo said, "Everything seems to be working fine for me." Jeff gave him a nod, indicating that he heard Poo.

Once they were finished getting the suits on and testing the radios onboard, the trio went over to the crates and armed themselves with spear guns, with each diver taking an extra pack of spears, and a man-portable mini-torpedo launcher. The teens also looked at the displays on the visors of the helmets. They saw information pertaining to their current environment, their armaments, air supply, as well as information about the integrity of their suits. The teens looked over at Giygas, who was not wearing a diving suit at all, nor did he take any of the weapons. After a few more minutes, they were ready to take the dive. The cargo bay doors opened and directly below them was the ocean. Ness and the others walked over towards the exit, air hoses trailing the suited teens as they walked. Jeff had enough line for the maximum depth, but little more, so when they went to move around down in Atlantis, the ship would have to echo their movements. After one final check on the diving suit systems, the teens were ready to dive. Ness was the first to jump off of the ship and into the water. He was followed by Paula, who was then followed by Poo. Giygas psychically formed a bubble of compressed air around his body and he, too, jumped into the water, following the teens down to the lost city of Atlantis.

The teens began their slow dive towards Atlantis, taking in the sights all around them. Paula was the most interested in the sights since she had seen many television programs about ocean life but never got to see it first hand. She knew that her friends back at school would be highly envious of her right now…if she had not been going down to engage a powerful undersea king that had the power to kill them and had been sinking Earth seafaring ships. Ness also held an interest to see what was out under the sea. But he was more interested in what the fish and other sea creatures were doing, rather than just admiring the sights. Plenty of fish filled out the scene before the teens. Ness was hoping that King Chimeron was not able to mentally control all life under the ocean. If he could, then this would be a bad day. He glanced over at Giygas, who was surrounded by a bubble of air. As if sensing Ness's question, Giygas responded telepathically, _No, I don't sense any external forces exerting any control over the fish or other undersea creatures in the area. I am, however, sensing another mind approaching._

_Another mind_? Paula asked telepathically. Her question took Giygas off guard. He had not realized that his broadcast to Ness was open to the other minds as well.

_Yes_, Giygas answered. _The creature is coming towards us from the right, fast_. Paula and Ness looked to their right. Indeed, a large creature was swimming into view. It was only a few hundred yards away from the quartet, and it was getting increasingly larger as it approached. Poo raised his guard, but did not prepare any offensive measures. _I'm not sensing any hostile intentions from the creature_, Giygas informed the others, sensing Poo's state of alertness. _I'm not even sure if it is aware of us. And if it is, it doesn't care about our presence_.

The group continued to descend and as they got deeper, they noticed that the creature that was approaching was a whale. When it got closer to the humans, they saw the distinctive black and white coloring pattern of a Killer Whale. The Killer Whale soon passed in front of the teens and Giygas. The Killer Whale then stopped for a moment and examined the party before giving off a click and a call. The others merely stared back at the whale. Giygas was amazed that something like that had some form of intelligence, even though he had read a lot about dolphins and whales on Earth during his time here. Not only that, but he began to wonder if there was something more than just a mere intelligence in that whale. The group then heard a series of clicks and a call echo through the water that all three human teens recognized as a whale song. The whale then sped off into the distance, producing more calls in what Paula felt to be an excited tone. It was then that they heard Jeff's voice come in through the radio. "Hey are you guys alright? Sensors picked up a whale moving close to you."

The teens replied, "Yeah, we're fine. The whale didn't hit us or attack."

Giygas then added telepathically, _I did not sense the whale song being received by any of the Atlanteans. Its intended recipient was something else entirely_.

While the others had not considered that possibility, they were relieved to know that the Killer Whale was not alerting Atlantis to their arrival. Jeff then broke in again, "I'm sensing a pod of Killer Whales approaching as well. You might want to get deeper so they don't take an interest in you. Even if they aren't working with King Chimeron, their presence and curiosity towards you could alert him that something's up."

The others agreed and they began to increase the speed of their descent. Giygas looked up overhead and saw the small pod of Killer Whales pass above not bothering to dive towards the humans and PSI Lord. Giygas also sensed the animalistic presence of a school of fish and he soon sensed that the only thing on the minds of the Killer Whales at the time was food. This was good. The whales posed no real danger to them.

The teens and Giygas continued their descent until the water got darker and darker. The teens activated their headlamps and immediately the area was illuminated once more. They could sense that they were getting closer and closer to the lost city of Atlantis. The minds of the mermen and mermaid guards were quite open to Giygas. Even Paula began to sense the presence of the merpeople. She did not perform a real scan on them, but their surface thoughts that were being projected in all directions. There was a sense of pure hatred that was borderline madness towards humans, even though, as it turned out, their own ancestors had initially been human, as Paula had learned from their thought projections. They had been bioengineered by an alien race worshipped as gods upon the sinking of the city of Atlantis. Their hostility towards humans was primarily because of humans polluting the oceans or waters of the world. Even after the invention of controlled fusion reactors and other clean energy sources and the decrease of pollution, they had continued to hate the humans, seeing humans as inferior. Part of that hatred was likely because the humans had rejected the gods that had made the merpeople as false gods and had driven them off the Earth millennia ago, despite humanity's lack of technology at the time. They had not understood why other intelligent sea creatures, particularly the whales, did not also detest the humans and kill them on sight. As such, they also viewed whales and dolphins as inferiors. In essence, they had a lot of pride and they were quite haughty.

The group continued to descend into the depths and the sensation of hatred that the Atlanteans held for humans, and other sea lifeforms, particularly whales only intensified. The only thing on their minds right now was the destruction of humanity and making them suffer for a long time. They would show no mercy whatsoever. They wished all the worst on humans, and any that dared to try to challenge their greatness. Not only that, but it seemed as if the Atlanteans seemed to revel in cruelty and slaughter towards humans. Should they manage to find survivors of a shipwreck, they would drag the humans down to drown, or do progressively worse things to the humans before letting them finally die. They were pure evil. The group could find no redeeming qualities in the Atlanteans at all. Whales and other smarter sea creatures knew to steer well clear of Atlantis.

It was not long before the spires of Atlantis were now visible to the party in the murky depths of the ocean. The wreckage of several ships, both old wooden ships and newer metallic ships were now visible. The metallic ships were rusted from having been down in the ocean for so long. Fish swam by the hulks as the group descended closer and closer to the bottom of the ocean. In addition to the sunken vessels, Ness thought that he could make out the wrecks of several aircraft as well. He began to think that the legends of the Bermuda Triangle were actually the Atlanteans shooting down aircraft and sinking vessels that passed over their kingdom.

Ness and the others did not dwell on the possible revelation as they slowed their descent before they touched down on the seafloor. They soon began to swim towards the city of Atlantis, which consisted of a massive palace with spires that looked to be almost as tall as the Empire State Building in New York. Giygas was in the lead so he could alert the group to any potential attacks without having to use his telepathic communication, which he feared the Atlanteans might pick up. After all, he was already beginning to pick up _their_ telepathic communiqués to their commanders and to King Chimeron. As the group began to swim towards the palace, Giygas sensed the minds of several Atlanteans, both mermen and mermaids as well as other creatures, watching them from the wrecks below. He held up his arm, indicating that they were under surveillance. Paula immediately opened her telepathic senses and warned the others over her radio, "Guys, we've got activity near the wrecks. There are large concentrations of Atlanteans in the wrecks beneath us."

"Should we attack them?" Ness asked.

_No_, Giygas responded telepathically, shaking his head. He did not say anything more for fear that the Atlanteans might pick up on his communiqué. Unfortunately, it appeared as if his thoughts were picked up by the others as Paula sensed a sudden shift in behavior. "Crud, they're going to attack!" she warned.

Ness immediately raised a Shield Omega over the party as the Atlanteans began to open fire on the teens from the safety of the sunken ships and downed airplanes. Golden beams of energy erupted from lances and tridents as they fired on the teens. Poo began to initiate a counterattack by powering a Starstorm Omega. Giygas held out his hands, warning him off. _Don't do it. You'll expend needed psychic energy for later_, he cautioned. Poo then powered down the attack, taking Giygas's advice.

"So what do we do?" Paula asked exasperatedly. "We can't use our psychic attacks against these sentries, since then we'll waste all of our energy, but we also can't simply use our torpedoes either. First of all, we don't have enough to use against them, and second, there's no guarantee that they'll be a confirmed kill if they can dodge the torpedoes or shoot them down."

It was then that Ness got an idea. He radioed Jeff and called, "Jeff, come in."

"Jeff here. I hear you loud and clear," the radio in Ness's suit crackled in response. "I'm reading weapons fire. How can I help?"

"Could those missiles on the Sky Runner II take out a ship?"

"No," Jeff responded. "But I've already replaced our used missiles with anti-ship torpedoes. You'll have to get out of there pretty quickly since the concussion wave will travel quickly through the water, but I could take out the major threats. That'll leave you with only a couple minor annoyances to deal with, if that."

"Do it," Ness commanded.

The group then hoped and prayed that Ness's Shield Omega would hold out against the wave of attacks that were coming at them. So far, the shield was holding, deflecting the energy bolts launched at them by the mermen. Paula then called out to the others in warning, "Guys, we've got more bad guys coming in. They're riding some sort of underwater skimmer."

Sure enough, Ness turned and saw several skimmers, which looked like scooters with energy cannons, coming towards them. The riders did not seem to be mermen, though. They seemed to consist of other species. They looked like chimeras of some sort, with parts from fish, humans, and others, only they often had fish or whale heads with human torsos and arms, with fish tails, or even human legs. They looked to be a mishmash of various creatures that only had human, or rather primate, features so they could use technology. The skimmers immediately opened fire on the group by firing electrical beams at the party. Ness and the others immediately sensed the beams penetrate and collapse their shields. The group then scattered as the skimmers continued to open fire on the heroes.

Poo had decided that he had had enough of being held back. He knew that they would not get out of this predicament without using some of their powers. Poo immediately stopped fleeing and focused in on the oncoming skimmers. Poo knew the risks of using electricity in the water, and in such close proximity to his friends, so he decided to go with the more energy intensive, but powerful and accurate, PSI Starstorm, keeping it at its Alpha level so he did not use up too much energy against the approaching enemies. A dozen blue orbs of energy formed around Poo and Paula and Ness swam out of the line of fire as Poo targeted the eight skimmers that were approaching. He targeted each and every skimmer, and their pilots, and then unleashed his barrage of energy stars at the skimmers. The stars rocketed towards the skimmers and before the pilots could engage in evasive maneuvers, the stars struck the skimmers and exploded. The concussions produced from the explosions sent the teens flying through the water, and forced them to resist the force of the explosions in order to remain where they were. However, the concussion had turned out to be a blessing in disguise as a golden energy bolt flashed through the space that Paula had occupied scant seconds ago. The group turned around and saw more lances of energy coming from the wrecked ships. Those attacks, however, were soon to cease, for Ness spotted several gray objects falling down towards the sunken ships and planes. The Atlantean sentries did not bother to look above them as the torpedoes fell down towards the ships. Ness and the others swam away as quickly as they could in order to escape from the blast waves that would be generated by the torpedoes' explosions. The torpedoes soon struck the hulls and detonated, blowing apart the sunken hulks with single hits, killing the Atlantean sentries that had been using the ships for cover as they launched their attacks on Ness and the others, while being careful to avoid Giygas, for they had not yet learned about Giygas's betrayal. Debris rocketed through the water, though the water's greater resistance meant that the shrapnel was quickly reduced in velocity and posed no danger to Ness and the others as they fled. The concussion wave, however, would, but Giygas had erected a shield over the party in order to protect them from the wave. The shield flared as the concussion wave hit and washed over the shield harmlessly. After the ships and planes had been dealt with, Ness spoke into his radio, saying, "Thanks Jeff."

"Anytime, guys" came the response. With the enemy behind them having been dealt with, the group then proceeded forward to deal with the enemy inside the palace, King Chimeron.

As the party made their way towards the palace, they had been met with other enemy parties. Paula had taken point and used her hydrokinetic abilities to incapacitate the squads without killing them. This was not merely because of her merciful tendencies, but because she also wished to avoid wasting too much psychic energy against small fry. Giygas, however, had no qualms about killing the enemy sentries, though. In his mind, if this attack ended up causing the extinction of the Atlanteans, then he was all for it. He used his own hydrokinesis to crush the Atlanteans, killing them, though he did it in a way that made it look to the survivors as if Paula had done so of her own accord. Paula gave a small scowl towards Giygas, who did not react to her scowl in any way.

The party then continued on their way, not stopping to search for any treasures along the way, since they figured that there was nothing of worth to them down here. As they approached the palace, Paula began to scan for the mind of King Chimeron. As they were searching for him, two Atlanteans came up from behind and attacked. Believing that the humans were shielded, the Atlanteans decided to attack the air hoses and lines that were attached to the suits from above. The Atlanteans fired their energy bolts at the lines of the teens from behind and severed them. Before Ness could raise a shield over the party, the lines of each of the heroes was severed. They immediately ejected the useless chords and completely sealed the suits, now using the air tanks on the backs of the suits to breathe, and the propellers on the suits to swim. Ness and the others then turned to face down the two Atlanteans, a duo of mermaids with human heads and torsos and fish tails. The mermaids were naked save for some shells covering their breasts. Their lack of armor would prove to be their undoing, as Ness and Paula took aim with their spear guns. They leveled the weapons at the two mermaids, who looked to barely be adults, but whose faces showed all of the cruelty and malice of someone far older than they appeared, and fired. Two arrows rocketed from the guns and speared the mermaids in the heart. They immediately dropped their lances and slumped backwards, beginning to float up towards the surface, dead. It was then that Jeff broke through on the comms, "Guys, your air lines have been severed. You've only got two hours of air left."

"We know," came the response from the teens. The two humans then reloaded their spear guns and headed towards the palace, Paula continuing her scan. Soon, she found King Chimeron.

"I've found him," she announced to the others. "He's in the highest tower spire on the top level. Getting to him shouldn't be complicated at all. However, he's well protected by a quartet of guards and has several patrol skimmers patrolling the tower area."

"Then we'll just have to take down the patrols and take out his guard as well," Ness answered casually.

The group proceeded towards the tower, swimming as fast as possible towards the tower, hoping to be spotted by the guards and patrols. They wanted to face the guards and their patrols now, so that they would not have to do so while facing King Chimeron. Just as they had hoped, their charge towards the palace's central and highest tower got the attention of the other Atlanteans. A dozen skimmers in tight formation turned to face the heroes. The heroes knew what to do. Ness and Poo pulled out their mini-torpedo launchers and zeroed in on the approaching skimmers. The skimmers were already launching their own electrical beams at the heroes, though their shots were going wide. After locking onto the leader, Ness let loose with one of his torpedoes. The torpedo streaked towards the approaching skimmer. The skimmer adjusted the targeting of his craft and fired on the torpedo, but his fire went wide. The torpedo then slammed into the skimmer and detonated. The explosion obliterated the skimmer, killing its pilot. The concussion produced by the blast also sent several other skimmers sailing off course and also either killed or blew out the eardrums of the Atlanteans that had been piloting them.

Poo targeted the remaining skimmers in the formation and fired. A single torpedo leapt from his launcher and targeted the lead skimmer. These skimmers, however, did not bother to try to shoot down the torpedo or evade it. They just continued targeting the party and unleashing volley after volley of energy blasts with the same accuracy as Stormtroopers in Star Wars trying to kill Han Solo and Leia. The torpedo struck the lead skimmer head-on, and obliterated it, along with its pilot. The ensuing explosion sent the other skimmers sailing off course as well, along with killing or severely injuring the Atlanteans that were piloting them. Poo looked at his handiwork, as well as Ness's. Two torpedoes, a dozen neutralized threats. Once that was finished, they continued on towards the tower.

Not far along in their swim, they encountered another threat. Two spires next to the tower split open and revealed two magic cannons. Giygas immediately appeared in front of the party as the cannons opened fire on the teens. Golden lances of magical energy erupted from the cannons and zeroed in on the heroes. Giygas raised a shield over the party that managed to protect the teens. The energy lances splashed harmlessly against Giygas's shield. Ness and Poo then decided to open fire on the two towers with their remaining torpedoes. They took aim with their launchers and simultaneously launched their final torpedoes at the two towers. The torpedoes streaked towards their targets, leaving a trail of bubbles in their wake as they zeroed in on the towers. Just as with the skimmers and their pilots, though, the towers made no attempt to target and shoot down the torpedoes, nor did their operators try to abandon the weapons. Paula could feel that their hatred for the humans was so intense that they were willing to face certain death for the off chance of managing to kill a human. She viewed them as a pitiable people and she truly felt sorry for them. Ness and Poo, on the other hand, simply viewed them as stupid, and Giygas not only viewed them as stupid, but as people that deserved to be destroyed. He had no sympathy for them whatsoever, possibly because he knew that they were likely going to be targeted once the humans were dealt with, especially since they were the last of their kind. The torpedoes soon struck the towers and exploded. The explosions destroyed the cannons, but also weakened the towers' structures as well. Pieces of what looked to be brick, mortar, and coral fell from the towers at their midpoints and soon, the towers collapsed onto the rest of the palace. The fall of the towers also served to destroy several other smaller towers and most certainly crushed several Atlanteans that were swimming by at the time of their collapse, as well as any Atlanteans that were inside the other towers and buildings that were destroyed by the falling guard towers. With the defenses of King Chimeron gone, all that remained was his tower, along with his guards and himself.

Giygas quickly decided to take care of his tower and guards before they could reveal anything about themselves. Giygas also figured that if he managed to kill King Chimeron in the process, so much the better. Giygas powered a green ball of PSI Special in his hands. He pointed the ball of energy at the tower as King Chimeron was revealing a massive energy cannon. Giygas then unleashed the ball of energy at the tower and watched as it rocketed towards the tower and exploded. King Chimeron swam away up away from the tower as Giygas's psychic ball of energy struck the tower and obliterated it. Paula could hear the psychic cries of dozens of Atlanteans as they were vaporized along with the tower. The debris rained down onto the rest of the palace and inflicted more damage to the palace, killing and/or injuring more Atlanteans. The teens focused their gaze on where the tower had once been and they saw a white swirl of energy in the middle of the ocean, the mark of a Sanctuary. The teens then swam towards the Sanctuary. But King Chimeron would not make claiming the Sanctuary so easy.

King Chimeron held his lance high and soon swam into view. Ness and the others were shocked at his appearance, for he had a human head that looked to be Caucasian with a grey beard and hair that fell down all the way to his back, a green dragon's torso with highly protective scales for armor, and clawed hands, that looked to also be potent weapons, and a shark's tail which allowed him to swim at a high speed. He soon stopped when he was about a dozen yards away from Giygas, and a few extra yards away from the humans. The humans then formed up around Giygas. King Chimeron opened his mouth and bubbles came out. However, the teens and Giygas knew immediately that King Chimeron was laughing. It was then that he communicated to them through his telepathy.

_So the great Master Giygas betrays us_, he said. _I should have figured as much. That human woman has corrupted you_.

Giygas also responded with a chuckle. _Look whose talking about corruption. I was the one who convinced you to fight with the humans_.

_And look what that got us_, Chimeron seethed. _Atlantis is all we have left. We have been exterminated everywhere else we have been. And even now, Atlantis is in shambles. We might not survive this_!

_I hope you don't_! Giygas exclaimed as he powered a blast of PSI Special. King Chimeron, however, raised his lance high and erected a shield over himself. However, Paula managed to catch that it was a _psychic_ shield that Chimeron had erected.

_Wait_, she tried to warn Giygas. _That shield is a psychic shield_! But it was too late. Giygas had already unleashed the attack on King Chimeron. King Chimeron laughed as he made no move to avoid the attack or launch any attack of his own. The green sphere of Special soon impacted the shield that King Chimeron had erected. The shield flared for an instant, generating a sphere of steam around the "merman" before being reflected back at Giygas. Paula had tried to erect a psychic counter shield around the others, but her shield had only managed to surround her friends. Since Giygas already had a shield bubble that contained the air he was breathing, Paula knew that she could not risk raising her own shield to protect Giygas.

Giygas's reflected ball of PSI Special struck Giygas and exploded, engulfing Giygas in a green sphere of energy. Giygas could feel his air bubble collapse and the air rush out of the bubble as the sphere expanded. Even worse was the fact that Giygas could not teleport outside of the sphere until it dissipated. He could feel his body burning away as the green sphere consumed him. Giygas immediately used Lifeup on himself to constantly regenerate himself and keep himself from being crushed by the intense pressure of the ocean. After the sphere of energy dissipated, Giygas tried to teleport but found that he was unable to do so.

_Ha, ha, ha, ha ha_! King Chimeron laughed. _I've set up magical teleportation inhibitors so you can't escape this place. You always were overconfident, Giygas. I guess you're not really as powerful as everyone thought you were_, he gloated.

Giygas was not dead yet, though. He was already using his psychic powers to take the oxygen from the water while simultaneously holding back the water pressure to prevent himself from being crushed by the massive water pressure.

While Giygas was focused on keeping himself alive and, thus, was unable to fight at the moment, Paula decided to launch an attack that would hopefully be able to inflict some real damage to King Chimeron. Paula took out her mini-torpedo launcher and took aim with one of her torpedoes. After she had locked onto King Chimeron, she pulled the trigger and a torpedo leapt out from the launcher, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake. The torpedo streaked towards King Chimeron, who was too busy gloating over Giygas's current predicament to notice the torpedo headed his way. He soon noticed Giygas grin subtly and he looked to his left and saw the incoming torpedo. He tried to refashion his shield so that it would reflect physical objects, but it was too late. All he could do was use his lance to magically increase his durability and hope for the best. The torpedo struck the creature right in the chest, where his torso had been covered with dragon scales. The torpedo then exploded. The concussion wave stunned King Chimeron and he felt several scales buckle and collapse under the force of the explosion. He also suffered damage to his hearing, though since he did not use echolocation, this was a minor loss, and one that could easily be healed by his magic. Still, the loss of a few scales, while not that terrible at the moment, was much more severe and could come back to haunt him later on. He soon focused his attention onto Paula as he raised a counter shield to block physical attacks. However, she did not attack him. She instead handed her torpedo launcher over to Ness, who had discarded his once he had run out of ammunition. King Chimeron could not hear the conversation between her and the rest of the party. If he could he would have heard her ask the others, "Can you two handle King Chimeron?"

Ness and Poo replied, "Sure."

"Then you go fight him while I go and help Giygas," she directed.

Ness had no problems and he accepted her torpedo launcher as she went over to assist Giygas. Once she had arrived at the struggling Giygas, she stopped to monitor the situation. She could feel that Giygas was barely able to hold back the water with his telekinesis alone and get air, but if relieved of some of his current burden, then he could not only manage to form another oxygen bubble, he may even be able to return to the fight, assuming Ness and Poo had not dealt with King Chimeron already. After assessing the situation, she used her hydrokinetic abilities to literally push the water away from Giygas. The interior of her visor glowed, indicating that her eyes were glowing from drawing upon so much psychic energy. She knew that this would take a lot of concentration and power. However, she was surprised when Giygas was quickly able to reform his oxygen bubble and create a new shield. This did not have the same amount of oxygen that Giygas's initial bubble possessed, but it was good enough. Giygas then telepathically told Paula, _It's alright. You can let go, now_. Paula immediately stopped pushing the water away from Giygas and let its normal weight and pressure flow back in on the PSI Alien. The salt water flowed back in on Giygas and his shield and bubble flared as the water flowed back in on Giygas, did not break. However, they were showing signs of strain, since Giygas's shield had flared and was creating a small ring of steam in the water. Still, Giygas motioned for Paula to go rejoin Ness and Poo in the battle. He was able to handle his situation now.

During Paula's assistance of Giygas, Ness had targeted King Chimeron with another torpedo while Poo swam around the creature so that the creature was in between him and Ness. Ness then fired the torpedo at the King of Atlantis. The last torpedo in the party's arsenal erupted from the tube and streaked towards Chimeron, leaving a trail of bubbles in its wake. King Chimeron proceeded to cackle and raise a reflector shield over himself. Unfortunately, for the king, Ness and Poo had planned on that. Poo then did something that was incredibly risky, especially for himself, and also for Ness. He powered a blast of PSI Thunder. It did not have to be all that strong, just strong enough to collapse King Chimeron's shield. Still, since they were surrounded by water, and wearing metallic suits, the risk was there for a short circuit or other damage being done to their suits, and themselves, which would be disastrous if the air tanks suddenly stopped functioning or blew. Still, it was the only way to lower the Atlantean's shield. Poo then unleashed his bolt of psychic lightning at the king. As expected, the entire area was full of electricity as the current traveled all throughout the water. The current washed over King Chimeron and collapsed his shield. It also washed over Ness, but inflicted no damage, since the current was much weaker the farther from Poo it was. By the time it had reached Ness, it did not have sufficient power to injure Ness or damage his suit. Poo also suffered no ill effects from the attack, being able to control it enough to prevent it from damaging him or his equipment. The attack now left King Chimeron vulnerable to the torpedo that was about to strike.

King Chimeron felt a tingling sensation as the psychic lightning washed over him. At first, he did not know why they had launched such a weak attack. It was only when he saw the torpedo coming that he wondered if his shield was still up. He tried to sense his shield and found that it was missing. He frantically tried to raise his shield again, but it was too late. The torpedo struck him in the torso and exploded. As the torpedo hit and exploded, King Chimeron exhaled a grunt of shock and pain. Again, the concussion blew out what little hearing he had left, but that was not big loss. The bigger loss was the fact that several more scales were blown off his body, and others were now greatly weakened. There were now several bare patches of skin now on his torso, some of them leading to vital organs. Not only that, but his equilibrium was also disrupted. Still, he had his magical lance and other magical powers. He was not out of this fight yet.

The first thing that King Chimeron did was to use his magical healing abilities to restore his equilibrium. While he could not restore his scales, any shrapnel wounds that he suffered were instantly regenerated. The Atlantean then turned to face down the two armored psychic teens. His first move in his counterattack was to point his lance at Ness and fire on the kid. A golden beam of energy leapt forth from his lance and streaked towards Ness. Fortunately, Ness had managed to raise a Shield Alpha over his body. The golden bolt of energy splashed harmlessly against his shield. Poo then took this opportunity to target King Chimeron with a spear. He fired his spear from his gun and the spear quickly struck the king in the back. However, his dragon scales were strong enough to be able to deflect the spear. It glanced off the scales only leaving a small scratch on the scales, inflicting no harm to the king. The king then targeted Poo, but this attack did not come from his lance. Seeing no problems with using his magical powers inherent to himself, he powered the magical equivalent of a PSI Thunder attack. The Thunderspark, as he called it, charged all around his body before he unleashed it against the teens. Instantly, the lightning reached out to Ness and Poo and struck them, arcing across their bodies. The teens gave off muffled cries as the attack hit. The teens then remained perfectly still before beginning to float back up to the surface. They had been paralyzed. King Chimeron laughed. He had them. But the battle was not over yet.

Paula once again entered the fray and before Chimeron could hit the paralyzed teens with a subsequent attack, she used PSI Torrent to send a pulse of water right at the Atlantean. The pulse of water caught the king off guard and struck him, forcing him backwards as if he had been caught in a rip current. Even worse was the fact that the attack knocked off some of the damaged scales that he was now relying on to protect his chest. Not only that, but he lost his grip on his lance and while it automatically returned to him, it gave the teens precious seconds to use PSI Healing to cure themselves of their paralysis. With their paralysis cured Ness and Poo joined Paula in the fight.

Knowing that several of Chimeron's scales over his chest were missing, the teens quickly formed up directly in front of Chimeron. The king quickly recovered from Paula's PSI Torrent and he quickly powered a magical water attack of his own. Chimeron began to form a swirl of water that eventually congealed into the shape of a serpent-like dragon. Ness immediately raised a Shield Omega over the party. The dragon proceeded to send a pulse of water their way. The pulse of water almost instantaneously struck Ness's shield, causing it to flare and steam, and rebounded the blast of water right back at the dragon. The pulse of water struck the dragon in its center of mass and blew a hole in it. The damage to the water dragon caused it to dissipate. While they dragon had been attacking Ness and the others, the trio of psychics drew out their spear guns, Poo already having reloaded his gun, and closed the distance with King Chimeron. King Chimeron had sent out a second pulse of water, but like the water dragon's pulse, that too was reflected off of Ness's shield and struck the Atlantean, momentarily disorienting him.

Ness and the others used this opportunity to close to point blank range with the king. By the time he had recovered, the teens were scant yards away from him. While he could easily hit them with beams of energy from his lance, he did not know how much strength Ness's shield still possessed. If it was still strong, such an action would cause him more harm than good. Chimeron then considered using another Thunderspark attack. The problem there was the fact that Thunderspark took a couple of seconds to charge, and in that time, the teens would attack. Still, it was better than attacking them with an attack that was guaranteed to bounce back at him and inflict massive damage to the Atlantean.

As such, Chimeron began to charge his attack. As the electrical field was beginning to form, Ness, Paula, and Poo took aim with their spear guns and fired in unison. The spears launched from the gun sped towards their targets, a patch of skin that was now bare due to the scales having been blown off during the battle. Before Chimeron could unleash his attack once more, the three spears struck home, directly into the patch of bare skin. The spears punctured the flesh of the Atlantean and remained embedded in his body. If anything, the tough scales on his back were a curse rather than a blessing, since the spears were serrated and pulling them out would inflict even more damage than he had already suffered. A red mist was oozing out from the three wounds in his chest. It would not matter, though, since Chimeron's heart had been pierced numerous times. Blood was now leaking out into the water as Chimeron slumped backwards, an expression of shock and pain etched onto his face, an echo of his last thoughts before he died. The teens began to swim away when a green burst of energy came up from behind and struck the Atlantean, vaporizing his body. The others looked back and saw Giygas floating there. _Just making sure he's dead_, he told them.

With King Chimeron dead, all that was left now was to go claim the Sanctuary. The group proceeded to make their way towards the white swirl of energy where the tallest spire of Atlantis once stood. The few remaining Atlanteans fled back to their homes and stations in Atlantis at the sight of the teens approaching the Sanctuary. They figured that anyone who could kill their king like that was someone to be feared and avoided, no matter what race they belonged to.

Soon, the group made it to the white swirl. Ness stayed back to guard the others and make sure that no sneak attacks were launched against the group. With that, Paula, Poo, and Giygas swam towards the swirl, stretched out their hands, and made contact with the energy. Once they made contact with the energy, memories of the past came flooding into their minds. For Poo, he remembered a time back in Dalaam when he was very young. He saw the image of his parents looking sternly at someone. He knew it was not him, but he also knew that whoever they were focusing their gaze on, they were close to his parents. He then heard a female voice sing, "…_and sweet harmony…_" Then, the memory ended and he found himself back with the group on the bottom of the ocean, albeit feeling fully rejuvenated.

Once the group had recorded the Sanctuary melody to their Sound Stones, the group returned to Ness. When they regrouped, Paula said, "Job's done. Let's go," through her speakers. The teens then made their way up towards the surface, swimming as quickly as they could so that they would not risk running out of oxygen. Giygas remained behind for a little while, though. Once the teens were out of sight, he used his powers to block his presence, and gave the impression that he was right behind them. The reality was, though, that he wanted to tie up some loose ends before rejoining them, and he felt as if they would not approve of his actions. _You Atlanteans have shown the worst features of a sentient species_, he thought. _You have shown cruelty, malice, and sadism towards the humans and other creatures, even of the sea. You even fought with us against the humans, and others of your kind who did not share your hatred of the humans. But what you never realized was that my people were always going to destroy you, too, when your usefulness had ended. Humanity's done a good job, so far, about dealing with you ever since you revealed yourselves as being hostile to them. I think I'll save them and my people the trouble. I can't have you nipping at humanity's heels after my people are defeated and humanity is saved. To that end…_

Giygas then powered a ball of PSI Special in his hands and stretched out his arms and cupped his hands outward as the ball formed and grew to the size of a small boulder. Giygas then unleashed the emerald ball of PSI Special down upon Atlantis and its surroundings, but not before psychically sending out a warning to all of the fish, other underwater animals, and marine mammals in the area. Once the other lifeforms were clear, Giygas unleashed his ball of Special on Atlantis. The ball flew down to Atlantis and struck the city in the center of the grand palace. The ball then exploded and a green sphere of energy engulfed the palace and the surrounding area. After a few seconds, the entire area, ships and planes and all, were engulfed by Giygas's attack. Giygas could hear the psychic cries of the remaining Atlanteans as they were disintegrated by Giygas's attack. He did not care for their plight. They had brought this fate on themselves by siding with evil. He had no sympathy for them whatsoever. After a few seconds, the ball dissipated and all that was left was a barren crater. Atlantis was no more, and the Atlantean species was now extinct. With all traces of the Atlanteans now removed from the Earth, Giygas rose up to join Ness and his friends on their ascent, making sure that they were not aware of what he had done to the Atlanteans. In that regard, his primary concern was Paula, since she was the one who had the most trouble with war. He felt that Ness and Poo would understand why he had done what he had done, even if they did not approve of his actions. But what concerned him more was the fact that Paula was telepathic, so there was still a chance that she could have picked up on the Atlanteans' destruction. He decided to let it lie for a while. If their destruction came up, he would address it then and not until.

Giygas soon rejoined the group and they made their way towards the surface. After a while, they saw that they were getting close. They sensed the minds of a couple of Killer Whales in the vicinity, but the whales had hunting on their minds and did not view the humans as food since there were several large fish that were just begging to be eaten by the pod. As the group passed, though, a younger Orca turned to glance at the teens. Paula thought that she could sense a smile emanating from the creature. She paid it no heed as she swam towards the surface.

The group soon surfaced and the Sky Runner II was hovering above them. The boarding ramp lowered to the sea and Jeff walked down towards the heroes. He helped Paula onboard first, pulling her up onto the ramp. Next came Poo, followed by Ness, who used his telekinesis to help himself onboard without any assistance, and finally, Giygas floated onboard. Once the group was onboard, the boarding ramp closed.

Onboard the flying saucer, Jeff and Giygas were helping the others out of their ADSs. Ness and Paula removed their suits and soon asked, "Okay, that's four Sanctuaries down. So, where to next?"

"Scaraba," Giygas answered.

"Why Scaraba?" Ness asked.

"Yeah," Jeff agreed. "Besides, isn't Stonehenge closer?"

"I think that the Scaraba Desert is a good choice," Poo said, agreeing with Giygas. "Some of the refugees from Dalaam resettled there. Perhaps there will be some good equipment to buy there, assuming it's still intact."

"It is," Giygas confirmed. "I made sure no one learned of Scaraba's importance. Besides, even though I don't know the boss there, I do know that the new King and Queen of the Fae are very powerful. I doubt that the pyramid's boss is going to be that difficult. It'll be a relatively easy journey and, as Poo said, Scaraba will be a good place for us to resupply and even rearm."

Seeing Giygas's logic, Ness nodded, saying, "Okay. Scaraba it is." Jeff then nodded and headed towards the cockpit. The craft then rose into the air and rocketed off towards Scaraba, in eastern Africa.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Ness headed into the cockpit so he could make his way into the main cabin. He was exhausted from his adventure in Atlantis since he did not carry a Sound Stone and, unlike His Sanctuaries, Paula, Poo, and Giygas's Sanctuaries did not restore him to full health. When he turned to enter the main cabin, Jeff called over to him, "Hey, could I see you and the others for a minute?"

Ness was tired, but he thought that he could spare a few moments to see what Jeff wanted. "Sure," he responded, and he followed Jeff to the pilot's station. He was quickly joined by Paula, Poo, and Giygas. Ness could not help but notice that Giygas seemed to be on edge, as if he was worried about what Jeff was going to tell them. Once they had assembled, Jeff began his report.

"Just so you know, guys, when you were rising up to the surface, my sensors registered a large explosion underwater."

"What kind of explosion?" Paula asked. "We felt nothing as we rose. Did you?" she asked, turning to Poo and Giygas.

Poo shook his head, as did Giygas, though his shake was not as noticeable. Ness noticed this, but chose not to say anything, yet.

"Well anyway, I checked my instruments and found that the explosion originated from what I calculated to be the center of Atlantis," Jeff continued. "Just before you boarded, I had the computer run subsequent scans to confirm my findings, and to see if anything else was killed." He then went over to the computer and checked the findings. "Well, well," he said, his eyes focusing in on the data. The other humans crept closer, wanting to see what the findings were. Giygas merely remained standing away from them.

"What is it?" Ness asked.

"The marine mammals and other sea life all fled the vicinity of Atlantis before the explosion," Jeff told them. "Someone must have sent a signal warning them away from the impending disaster. Not only that, but the computer picked up a psychic signature heading towards Atlantis before its destruction." He then turned to Ness and Poo, since they were the only ones who had psychic attacks that could level cities. "Did either of you finish off Atlantis after you left?"

This question surprised Paula, whose eyes flashed in shock. "What? You think that either of them would do such a thing?"

Ness and Poo had merely shaken their heads. "No," Ness replied. "I was too eager to get back up to the ship to think about destroying Atlantis. And I know that Poo wouldn't do something like that," he added, glancing over to Poo.

"Did any of the Atlanteans manage to escape?" Poo asked.

"No," Jeff responded, shaking his head. "Save for the sea life that fled before the attack, there were no survivors."

"So who killed them?" Paula asked.

"And why?" Poo echoed. "I could theoretically see it as punishment for failing to defend the Sanctuary, but it would have required a Starman to be present." Poo then approached the computer, causing Jeff to try rush to the console. "Did sensors detect any Starmen in the area?"

"No," Jeff answered. "But I did notice that Giygas took his time rejoining you." The group looked over at Giygas. That was when Giygas realized that he had forgotten something. He had forgotten to alter the sensor data from the Sky Runner II's computer.

"Are you saying that Giygas destroyed the remaining Atlanteans?" Paula asked, shocked that Giygas would have done such a thing after having joined their party.

Jeff shrugged. "I don't know. It's possible. There's just no way to know."

It was then that Giygas broke in. "Let me put your minds at ease. Yes," he admitted. "I destroyed Atlantis, and killed all of the remaining Atlanteans." This admission shocked Paula and she glared at Giygas, her gaze a mixture of shock, horror, and anger. Giygas paid her little heed. He turned to the others and continued, "The reason I did so was because the Atlanteans were our enemies. They served the PSI Lords and were a threat not only to humans, but to other sea mammals as well. They would have continued to attack your people, as well as other lifeforms. That could not be allowed. Besides, they would have eventually been destroyed anyway, likely by the rest of humanity, but not before they managed to inflict casualties on the humans."

"But you destroyed them all!" Paula blurted. "Every man, woman, and child!"

"There were no children left," Giygas retorted. "In order to show that they were loyal to us, my people demanded a sacrifice from them. The sacrifice that my people demanded was their children under the age of sixteen of your years old. The original king, Tritan, refused the order and said that he and his people would not join us. Chimeron, however, wished to join, but Tritan refused. As a result, Chimeron gathered his followers and killed Tritan and adult family members, sacrificing the children to us. He then killed anyone who had supported Tritan and did not hate humanity and try to kill them, so the others either joined in the attacks or did nothing. You sensed the Atlanteans there. Did you see anything in their minds or souls that seemed to be anything remotely close to a redeeming quality? The things that they would do to the shipwreck victims were too horrible for me to repeat. They did things that you could not even imagine. There was no one good left down there! All of them were evil! Every! Last! One! It was like your biblical Sodom and Gomorrah, only worse."

That gave Paula little comfort. "You still killed every single one of them!" she cried, pointing her finger at him. "And don't tell me that there wasn't a single good Atlantean left. I don't believe for a second that Chimeron managed to kill them all."

"Well, he did," was Giygas only response as he leaned over towards Paula. He made it in a forceful and angry tone that matched Paula's. Paula's glare matched Giygas's and they stared at each other for a few moments before Paula shook her head in disgust. She then turned and stormed into the main cabin. Ness was quick to follow her to try and calm her down and talk to her. Giygas merely walked over to the cargo bay so that he could be alone with his thoughts. That left Jeff and Poo standing in the cockpit. While Poo had not voiced it, he thought that if what Giygas had said was true, then he had no problem with what Giygas did to the people of Atlantis. It was better than what they were said to have done to their victims, and even he had felt the evil of the Atlanteans down there. He had felt nothing good down there at all. Had Ness, Paula, and Giygas not been with him, he almost felt as if the evil that was concentrated down there would have driven him insane, and he only had latent telepathic ability, energy manipulation and control being his primary specialty. Maybe it had for Giygas, hopefully temporarily. One thing he knew was, though, was that as sad as it was, the Earth, and even the universe, was a better place now without Chimeron's Atlanteans in it. And that was the worst thing that Poo could ever say about anyone. He then went to sit down in the copilot's seat. As he sat down, he let out a long sigh. After Jeff had sat down in the pilot's seat, he turned to Poo and asked, "So, besides the success at the Sanctuary, how was your trip? What was it like down there?"

Poo then went on to describe their trip, making sure that Jeff knew just what he had sensed when he sensed the Atlanteans approaching the first time.

Inside the cabin, Paula sat on her sleeping pallet with her head in her hands. Ness thought at first that she was crying, but the coldness in her voice of her request, "Ness, please leave," indicated that she was not in tears.

Ness did not oblige Paula, but instead came over to her and sat down next to her. Paula looked up at Ness and he could see the true extent of the rage that Paula had hidden from the others in the cockpit. Her eyes did not glow, but there was an unnatural look in them. Ness calmly edged closer to her and looked her in the eyes. Paula, however, merely stared at the floor. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

Paula then looked up at Ness and met his gaze. Her look softened and now, her sadness began to show. "I know what you're going to say, but I just can't get over it," she began. "An entire species is now dead, and it's mostly because of us. I know that it was Giygas who finished them off, but we had done a good enough job of wrecking Atlantis before he finished off the city."

Paula then paused for a bit. Ness knew that that was not what really bothered Paula. They had been engaging an enemy in the heat of battle, an enemy that was powerful and had them at a disadvantage due to having to fight said enemy not only in his natural environment, but in an environment that humans could not survive. Despite the massive power advantage that Ness and the others held against the Atlanteans, the Atlanteans still posed a significant threat to them, as evidenced by the fact that Chimeron was able to take Giygas out of the fight early in the battle. It was then that Ness spoke again.

"I see," he told her. He then looked into her eyes and asked, "What is it that really bothers you?" His tone was caring. He wanted to help Paula in any way that he could if she was having any psychological problems with what had just happened.

Paula merely asked, "What do you mean? I just cannot stand the fact that an entire species was just exterminated, and that I had something to do with it."

"We are fighting to exterminate the PSI Lords and the Starmen," Ness replied in a quiet tone. "Chances are that the various Elf races and the Roswell Grays that we encountered are likely going to be exterminated as well," he added.

"That's different," Paula told him. "The PSI Lords have already exterminated countless species, and billions, if not trillions, of lives. If they are not stopped, the same thing will happen to humanity, and to many other species. This is a war to save lives, not exterminate them."

"Yet the extermination of a species, and possibly more, will undoubtedly result if we emerge victorious," Ness countered, his voice still full of compassion. "In this war, it's kill or be killed. The PSI Aliens won't stop until all of humanity is dead. Unless the Roswell Grays, Elves, or even any surviving Starmen retreat after the PSI Aliens are dead, then chances are that they will be killed as well if they continue the fight, either by us or the rest of humanity." He then looked into Paula's eyes and kept his gaze on her. He remained like this for several moments before asking, "Paula, what's really bothering you?"

Paula then went over and embraced Ness. Ness simply sat there and held her for several minutes, comforting her. Eventually, Paula broke the silence. "I guess what bothered me about that incident wasn't the fact that the Atlanteans were destroyed, the fact that Giygas destroyed them, or even callousness of the act. It was the fact that I could have easily seen myself doing that if what you say is true. I've thought about the end result of this war before. Deep down, I always knew that one race would live, and another would die, but I was not directly confronted with that knowledge until I heard Giygas admit to exterminating the Atlanteans, and the fact that he was so ready to hide the fact that he did so from us. That could eventually be me."

"But that's not you," Ness told her. "And I don't think that you will ever become a monster. The fact that you're as bothered by this incident shows as much. You're a better person than that."

"But will I stay that way?" Paula asked. "War changes people. I know that this isn't our first war, but this is a lot different from three years ago even though the stakes are the same. First of all, we're older. This isn't just some adventure to us. The condition of the world is a lot different now than it was then. Today, much of the Earth has already either been destroyed or suffered damage at the hands of the PSI Aliens and their servants. How long will it be before I start viewing the PSI Aliens the same way Giygas viewed the Atlanteans? And the PSI Aliens are _a lot_ worse than the Atlanteans were, despite the evil I sensed in their hearts. Will I project that image onto other evil people? Merely people that I don't agree with? How am I to know that I won't become like Giygas?"

"The fact that we're having this conversation is a start," Ness suggested. He was hoping to get a smile out of Paula. After seeing that he failed, he continued, "Also, having a group of friends to keep you on the straight and narrow doesn't hurt." He then went over and embraced Paula again, letting her head rest against his shoulders. She then looked up at him and smiled.

"How can you remain so strong and sure in these types of situations?" she asked. "I haven't seen you have any problems at all with this fight and what we will have to do to win this war."

"Then you haven't seen everything there is to see about me," Ness responded quietly. "I've been kept awake at night worrying about the prospect of becoming a zealot for justice at the expense of mercy, or worse, a complete monster. It's even worse for me since my power and attacks seem to be focused solely on destruction. Unlike you and Poo, I don't have elemental PSI. PSI Flash, at lower levels, Hypnosis, and Paralysis is all I have for offense. And against some enemies, Hypnosis, Paralysis, and even Flash are ineffective, and others still have PSI so that makes Paralysis even more ineffective when dealing with certain enemies. Chances are that Poo might have the same issues as well."

"But how do you deal with it?" Paula asked, holding him tightly. "You have never shown any signs of stress before. Had you not told me that you sometimes stay up at night or when you should be resting, I would never have known that you had these issues."

Ness thought about her question for a moment. Eventually, he replied, "I don't really know. I guess it begins with me knowing who I am and what my purpose is." Ness then gave a soft laugh, trying to bring a lighter tone. "There have been times when I have felt that I could run the country better than the people in charge, or even the world."

Paula smiled and gave a soft laugh as she disengaged from Ness. "Yeah," she admitted. "There have been times when I've thought the same."

"You do realize we have the power to do so, right?" Ness asked. He then gave a pause and focused on her.

Paula nodded. "Yeah, I do, especially in my case with me being a telepath."

"Then why haven't we done so?"

Paula had known that the conversation would come to this, but the question still surprised her and forced her to think before she gave an answer. As she searched for the answer, she realized that she did not have one. Even though she had never considered doing such a thing before, even though she had the power to do so, she still could not find the answer. It was then that a voice coming from the doorway answered the question for her, and Ness, "It's because you're a good person. And you are wise beyond your years."

Paula and Ness turned to see Giygas standing in the doorway, leaning against the door with his arms crossed. "You are both good people, as evidenced by your reaction to my extermination of the Atlanteans." He then walked over towards them and sat down in front of them. "You aren't me, or the rest of my people. Heck, you aren't even like a lot of your own people. You're better than us. You strictly adhere to a strict code of ethics and morals that has become rarer and rarer in your world, though that has begun to change since World War Three and my people's invasion. In my experience, you are even wiser than some of the human adults that I have encountered."

Ness gave a laugh. "Yeah, well, most of the human adults you encountered were likely criminals," he said.

Now, Giygas gave a chuckle. "That's true," he admitted. "My people mostly recruited drug dealers, war criminals that escaped the law, 'normal' felons, warlords, etcetera. Not the pinnacles of virtue in any world. The same holds true for almost all collaborators that we take onboard. Most collaborators are very willing to sell out the rest of their people to extinction to either save their own lives or have power. Some of the slaves my people take onboard are even given to the collaborators to use as they please. And what they do is too awful for me to repeat. I must admit that I did enjoy sending collaborators against your military forces to die, especially after witnessing your militaries fighting and the courage and honor that the soldiers of your armed forces demonstrated in their battles against us."

"Yeah," Paula said quietly. Still, she was smiling again. "Thank you. Both of you," she said sincerely. She then focused in on Giygas. "I still would not have done what you did, and I still cannot condone it; but at least I understand why you did what you did."

Giygas gave an understanding smile and he then left so the two kids could be alone. After Giygas had left, Paula turned to Ness and told him, "Thank you for listening, and for understanding."

"You've helped me too, Paula," Ness replied. "Your kindness, mercy, and your love have kept me walking on the straight and narrow ever since I learned about my power. I don't know if I would have been able to come this far after seeing the things I have seen if it wasn't for you."

"The others must have helped too," Paula said, giving a little laugh. It was music to Ness's ears and his face burst into a smile after hearing it.

"Yeah, them too," Ness admitted. "But I am still closest to you," he told her.

"I still can't condone what Giygas did, though. I just wonder, am I being a hypocrite since we are probably going to end up doing the same to Giygas's people?"

Ness contemplated Paula's question. "I don't know," he eventually answered. "I guess the answer depends on your mindset. Giygas's people are a clear and present threat to us, and they can still inflict obscene damage to the rest of the galaxy. I don't know if that was the case for the Atlanteans, even on a scale such as Earth. Still, there seemed to be fewer Atlanteans left than PSI Aliens, and those we faced were, indeed, pure evil. Still, I don't know. I don't think that I would have exterminated the Atlanteans. But that was because I would have given them a second chance since Chimeron was dead, along with his guards and most of his forces. If they tried to attack humanity again, then all bets would be off."

"I guess that's the difference, then," Paula said, smiling at Ness. "Thank you, Ness." She then rose from her pallet so that she could leave Ness in peace. Ness then went over to his sleeping pallet so that he could get some rest. As he lay down, he glanced over to Paula, who was beginning to walk to the exit, and smiled at her. Paula returned his smile and he went to sleep. After he fell asleep Paula returned to him and knelt by him next to his pallet. She then proceeded to fold her hands and pray for him and the others.

The Sky Runner II flew for several hours before it reached Scaraba. Along the way, two Fighter UFOs attempted to accost the craft, but due to some deft maneuvering and skillful gunning, the two Fighter UFOs were taken down by the quad energy cannons. After the brief skirmish, the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Several smaller man-sized UFOs tried to accost the craft, but they were non-threats due to the fact that their weapons were not powerful enough to breach the shields of the Sky Runner II. Even the armor, alone, was sufficient to block their beams. To Jeff, shooting down the smaller UFOs was more like an arcade shooting game than an actual battle battle. Both he and Giygas competed against each other to see who could shoot down more enemies. In the end, he had just barely edged out Giygas, who was gracious in his defeat.

After several hours, the Sky Runner II began to approach Scaraba. Jeff slowed down so that he would not overshoot his target area, and so that he could conserve fuel. One thing he wished to do once in Scaraba was to get some more fuel for the Sky Runner II, especially since one of the Sanctuaries was on the moon. When they were beginning their approach, Poo went to the back cabin to alert Ness and Paula that they were about to arrive in Scaraba. Poo entered the cabin and saw Ness sleeping on his pallet with Paula kneeling on the floor, slumped over placing her head next to his. Poo cleared his throat with an, "Ahem," trying to awaken the two. Both Ness and Paula shot up like they had been shot out of a cannon.

"I'm up!" they responded in unison. They then looked around for a second and noticed Poo standing in the door with a knowing smile on his face. "We're about to arrive over Scaraba," Poo informed them. "Jeff wants to touch down so he can rearm and refuel, or rather get some more fuel for the extended journey that we'll be taking later."

"Oh, okay," Ness replied awkwardly as Paula rose to head out into the cockpit. Ness then went and followed Paula and Poo into the cockpit of the ship. Ness entered the cockpit and found Jeff and Giygas in the pilot and copilot seats respectively. Paula and Poo had taken the two secondary weapons stations, which left the rear station, which gave all of the technical information and readouts of the Sky Runner II, for Ness. Ness took his seat as Jeff began his descent towards the Scaraba Desert. Ness soon noticed that they were headed towards the Scaraba Pyramid, which was the location of the next Sanctuary and he turned around to Jeff and asked, "Hey Jeff, and everyone else for that matter, is it alright if we touch down near the Scaraba Pyramid before heading into the city?"

The others looked over at Ness. Poo was the first to ask, "Is there any special reason why you wish to do that?"

Ness shook his head. "I just thought that it would be more convenient," he replied. "We have a good supply of weapons for the journey through the pyramid, so we aren't in dire need of new weapons yet. I just thought that we should tackle the pyramid first, then go to Scaraba to rearm and heal up before going to Stonehenge."

The others nodded. "It makes sense," Paula said. "We do still have a good weapons loadout and Ness and I, at least, are at full psychic strength. This would be a good opportunity to go in and claim the next Sanctuary."

The other humans had no problems with this plan. Jeff went further and said, "This is better than the previous plan. This way, we won't have to backtrack to Scaraba after we go through the pyramid."

The others agreed. Even Giygas nodded at Jeff's statement. Jeff then went back to the console and adjusted the course of the Sky Runner. The Sky Runner II made an abrupt turn and began to descend down towards the ground. Soon, they were flying along a river when in the distance they saw a group of pyramids. One pyramid, however, dwarfed the others. Jeff leveled off his descent at only a hundred feet or so above the ground. He skimmed over the river and flew directly towards the great pyramid. He passed the exit to the pyramid that they were familiar with from their previous jaunt through the pyramid. The exit, however, seemed to be closed, though. It looked like the entrance collapsed so it was no longer usable. Jeff then continued to fly the Sky Runner II towards the pyramid. Once they were close, he brought the craft into hover mode and he descended down to the stone pad in front of the sphinx statue. The statue did not move or make any attempts to communicate with them. It appeared as if it was no longer functional. The party did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The Sky Runner II touched down on the pad. Jeff had made sure that the cannons were fully armed and ready, just in case the sphinx was now a guardian for the Sanctuary working for the PSI Aliens instead of merely a key to the pyramid. When there was no reaction, the party breathed a sigh of relief. Jeff quickly went over to a compartment near the boarding hatch and pulled out a remote control. "This thing will allow me to keep the Sky Runner powered while I'm in the pyramid with you," he explained. The others figured that it would allow the shields of the ship to remain up once the party had disembarked from the craft. The others then went over to the boarding ramp. Jeff pushed the button and the ramp opened up for them. The quintet then walked down the ramp and onto the stones below. The sphinx made no move whatsoever. Ness glanced over to Poo and Giygas, indicating that they should scan the sphinx. They both did so, as did Paula, and they soon shook their heads, indicating that there was no energy emanating from the sphinx, or telepathic presence inside the sphinx. However, Paula did sense a great deal of energy emanating from the pyramid, itself.

"There's definitely a Sanctuary in there," she stated, almost ominously. "I can also sense several other psychic presences as well. That place is heavily guarded and the PSI Aliens definitely have a lot of influence over that pyramid."

Giygas nodded. "My people had a great presence in that pyramid. I am surprised that you did not sense any Starmen here. The last time I remembered, we stationed some Starmen here to keep guard over the pyramid. The destruction of the assault force in America and the fleet in orbit must have had a greater effect than I anticipated."

With that, the group then approached the entrance to the pyramid. Once they were at the entrance, they saw that the doors were locked tight. Giygas soon stepped forward and said, "Allow me." With that, he fired a pulse of emerald green energy from his hand, which impacted the stone doors and blew a hole in them. Dust and debris scattered from the impact sight. Giygas then pushed his hand out and the doors flew backwards down the path of the pyramid. "After you," he said, graciously standing aside and motioning for the others to proceed. The teens did so, with Jeff commenting, "Definitely easier than last time." The group then headed into the pyramid and made their way towards the next Sanctuary.

Upon entering the pyramid, the group found themselves in a relatively small room with a single door in front of them. There were no enemies present yet, but the others did not lower their guard. The group looked around and noticed hieroglyphics lining the walls. Their previous experience in the Pyramid told them that there was a strong possibility that these hieroglyphics could come alive at any moment and attack. The quintet scanned the wall to see if there were any signs of snake glyphs or dog-like glyphs. So far, there were none, so they decided to pause here for a bit. Paula activated her active telepathic senses to see if there were any enemies in the vicinity and gauge just how powerful they were. She sensed no telepathic presences, but since the hieroglyphic enemies might not even be alive, merely magic or psychic energy given form, then there was a chance that she would not be able to detect the enemies. Poo extended his own psychic senses and he sensed energy emanating all throughout the pyramid. There were definitely enemies throughout the rest of the pyramid. "Be careful guys, there are a lot of enemies here," he warned.

Paula then chimed in, saying, "Chances are, though, that they're either some form of hieroglyphs, mummies, or animated statues since I sense no minds present."

That did not surprise anyone. It was the same as it had been the last time they were in the pyramid. The group then proceeded through the door. The quintet emerged into a corridor with a stairwell leading up. The walls were covered with hieroglyphics. The group was now on their guard, for they knew that enemies could strike out from the wall at any moment. Sure enough, as soon as they began climbing the stairs, two Guardian Hieroglyphs, humanoid dog-like drawings on the wall armed with what looked to be a form of cane with a jewel on its head came off the wall and approached the quintet, still looking like a drawing in thin air. Joining the Guardian Hieroglyphs were two Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs, snake hieroglyphics. The quartet of hieroglyphics soon came at the five warriors. Paula and Poo stepped forward and unleashed two blasts of PSI Thunder at the quartet of hieroglyphs. The blasts of PSI Thunder fried the two Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs instantly, reducing them to small piles of dust, but the Guardian Hieroglyphs were a little harder to take down. They managed to survive the initial attacks of Paula and Poo. They soon unleashed their own streams of PSI Thunder in response: their target, Ness. As with so many other enemies, though, they did not realize that Ness was wearing a Franklin Badge. Their lightning bolts struck Ness in the chest, but instead of harming Ness, a distinctive metallic clang rang out. The lightning then streaked back towards the hieroglyphs and struck them, reducing them to dust. With that battle over, the group continued to climb the stairwell. The group soon came to the top of the stairwell and encountered an all too familiar enemy known as a Fierce Shattered Man, which was a human-looking enemy that seemed to be partially mummified. The mummified enemy soon charged towards the group. Paula decided to deal with this enemy before he could attack by unleashing a blast of PSI Freeze at the mummified enemy. A snowflake of psychic energy appeared in front of Paula's hand. She propelled the icy psychic blast towards the undead opponent and the snowflake struck the mummy and exploded, encasing the Fierce Shattered Man in a block of ice. Paula then whipped out her Non-Stick Fry Pan and shattered the undead creature. The group then noticed an entrance to another area and proceeded through the entrance.

The group emerged in a small room with a sarcophagus in the center. The teens quickly went over to the sarcophagus and saw that its lid was ajar. They soon heaved the sarcophagus open, but they found only the decomposing remains of a mummy. Poo also sensed no special energy emanating from this mummy, either, so the group then went towards the door which led to the next area, and went on through.

In the next area, they encountered another stairwell. The group made their way up the stairwell and again, more Guardian Hieroglyphs and Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs emerged from drawings on the wall and came after the heroes. The Guardian Hieroglyphs pointed their canes at the teens and lightning began to crackle across the heads of the canes. The Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs slithered towards the group so that they could get within biting range of the heroes so they could attack. The heroes, however, knew the power of the hieroglyphs now. Not only that, but Giygas was beginning to get impatient, so he simply powered a PSI Starstorm attack and targeted the group of hieroglyphs. A dozen green orbs of energy formed around Giygas as the humans watched in surprise. They had not known that Giygas was capable of performing this attack. Giygas then extended his arms and the stars soon streaked towards the hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs were unable to react to the incredible stream of stars that were headed their way. The stars impacted with each of the glyphs and disintegrated them, continuing forward a few feet before dissipating. The battle had ended in less than two seconds. Not only that, but Giygas had also demonstrated a measure of control that was beyond Poo in the use of his Starstorm. Poo also guessed that Giygas used less energy in the execution of his attack than he did. The group then continued up the stairwell, with Giygas leading the way, until they came to a small landing.

Upon reaching the landing, the group scanned the walls to see if there were any more hieroglyphs to face. There were a few that were coming off the wall to face them. Paula and Poo put a quick stop to that by unleashing streams of PSI Thunder Omega towards them. The hieroglyphs ran into the rain of thunder and were instantly reduced to ashes. With that minor annoyance dealt with, the group proceeded up the rest of the stairs. The group then came to another large open door. The group then proceeded to make their way through the door.

In the next room was a large pedestal with a tomb sitting on top. Lying on top of the tomb was a mummy with a helmet on his head. Ness guessed that the figure had been a Pharaoh. From their previous trip through the pyramid, Ness and the others knew that there was a secret passage beneath the sarcophagus, and that they would have to continue through the pyramid in order to find and activate the switch that opened the way to the exit. Paula, Poo, and Giygas soon extended their psychic senses and found that not only was the exit to the pyramid beneath the secret passage, but also the Sanctuary that they were searching for. Ness then glanced around the area and found two humanoid stone statues approaching.

"Uh, guys, we've got trouble," he called out in warning, pointing to the two Petrified Royal Guards that were fast approaching. Ness and Paula soon took out a pair of Super Bombs and tossed them towards the charging statues. The bombs hit the ground just in front of the statues and detonated. Their blasts blew apart the stone statues and pieces of rock flew out in all directions. The pieces of the shattered statues soon fell to the ground and broke into even more pieces. With that threat dealt with, Ness decided to see if there were any treasures that they could loot from the pyramid, since there had been several useful treasures found during their previous visit. With that, Ness turned around and found another door, which he remembered had led to another stairwell. Without any further delay, the group made its way over towards the door, and into the stairwell.

Inside the next stairwell, several Guardian Hieroglyphs and Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs came off the wall, with some already walking around the stairs, and went towards the heroes. The Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs were the first to strike and they lashed out at the group. Paula responded by firing a bolt of PSI Thunder, frying two of the Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs, but for every one that fell, two took its place. Poo soon added his own PSI Thunder to Paula's, but it was not enough to take out all of the enemies. Two of the Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs managed to reach Paula and Poo and they both bit down on them, poisoning them.

Meanwhile, Jeff was blasting away at the Guardian Hieroglyphs that were attacking, only managing to score minimal damage since they were in essence two-dimensional creatures. Every so often, though, Jeff scored a hit that managed to inflict damage, or even defeat the Guardian Hieroglyphs. Ness quickly went over to help his friend, gripping his bat and bashing the Guardian Hieroglyphs. There were still a large number of them, though, and the Guardian Hieroglyphs had not tried launching any PSI Thunder attacks on Ness or Jeff. Still, the two teens were sufficient to deal with the remaining hieroglyphs. When the last one dissipated, Ness and Jeff knelt down on one knee to take a breath.

Back where Paula and Poo had fought off the Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs, Paula had already taken out her two remaining Refreshing Herbs and handed one to Poo. The two of them ate the herbs and were cured of their poison. They then rejoined Ness and Jeff. Giygas had merely watched the proceedings with mild interest since, despite their large numbers, the hieroglyphs were not all that dangerous a threat. He then joined the rest of the party and they climbed the rest of the stairs and entered the room at the top of the stairwell. Inside the room was a single casket. Poo quickly scanned the casket and found no energy emanating from the casket. He looked back at the others and indicated that it was safe. Paula then went over to the casket and opened it. Upon removing the top and placing it on the floor with a clatter, she peered into the casket. Inside she found a Bag of Dragonite, an item that she knew would come in quite handy. She picked up the bag and stuffed it into her backpack. With nothing further to do here, the group then backtracked back down to the room with the Pharaoh sarcophagus.

Upon reentering the room, the group found that it was still devoid of enemies. Their last trip through had cleared out the enemy forces and none of them had re-spawned yet. The teens and Giygas did not want to take any chances so they rushed through the room and went through the exit on the other side. The group then found themselves in another corridor. Inside this corridor were more Guardian Hieroglyphs and Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs. Giygas took care of these minor annoyances with a blast of PSI Fire Omega. A ball of flame leapt out of his hands and struck the animated drawings, incinerating them. The group then walked past the scene of the burning and dispersing drawings and made their way down the stairwell. Guarding the entrance to the next room were two more Petrified Royal Guards. Before they could rise to engage the heroes, Paula and Poo tossed some Super Bombs down at the two stone guards. The bombs bounced in front of the two and as they rose, the bombs exploded, blowing apart the stone warriors. The group then casually walked past the scene of broken stone limbs and heads and walked into the next room.

In the next room, two caskets stood against the wall, and a Guardian Hieroglyph emerged from between the two caskets and tried to engage the warriors. Knowing that it was no match for the group, the Guardian Hieroglyph let loose with a hacking cough, coughing towards Ness and Paula. Paula managed to dodge out of the way of the cough, but Ness was not so lucky. Ness immediately began to sniffle and sneeze. He had caught a cold and was now experiencing the symptoms as if he had had the cold for several days. Still, the fact that he had a cold did not mean that he was unable to fight back against the Guardian Hieroglyph. Ness's first order of business was to draw out his baseball bat and take a swing at the glyph. His bat managed to connect with the body of the glyph. The sound of a baseball being struck by a bat sounded when he made contact with the Guardian Hieroglyph. The glyph was driven back by the attack, and soon, the others joined him. Paula and Poo both charged the glyph with their weapons drawn. Paula bashed the glyph in the head, causing it to slump downward, while Poo swung his sword in a decapitation strike. His strike took off the head of the Guardian Hieroglyph and it fell over and disappeared before the head had even hit the floor. With the room cleared of enemies, the group then headed over to the two caskets in the corner. Before opening the casket, though, Ness took out one of his Refreshing Herbs and he ate it. He was immediately cured of his cold and his nasal passages cleared up immediately. He felt better than he had in a long time. With the cold out of the way, Ness headed over to the caskets. Ness opened the casket on their left and Poo opened the one on their right. The casket on the left contained a Big Bottle Rocket. Ness promptly gave the rocket to Jeff, who would be able to put the weapon to great use. Poo proceeded to open the casket on the heroes' right. Inside he found a Cup of Lifenoodles. This was great since a Cup of Lifenoodles could not only heal a member of the party of any condition, but also revive them from unconsciousness. Poo immediately stuffed the item in his backpack. He knew that the Cup of Lifenoodles would come in handy later on. Once the group had gotten all of the treasures that they could find, they proceeded into the next area of the pyramid.

In the next corridor, they found another stairwell that led them down deeper into the pyramid. As with every room and corridor, hieroglyphs lined the walls. The group cautiously made their way down the stairwell, preparing for any of the glyphs on the wall to jump out and attack. Not far down the stairwell, a Lethal Asp Hieroglyph jumped out and attacked, lunging at Paula. Unfortunately, for the magically animated drawing, Paula was ready for his attack. She caught the snake drawing in her hands, twirled it around a few times and threw it against the wall. The snake struck the wall, leaving cracks in the stone and it fell to the floor. Jeff then took this opportunity to shoot it with his Gaia Beam pistol. The single scarlet bolt of energy burned through the drawing's head, causing it to disappear. With the snake beaten, the group continued down the stairwell.

The rest of the stairwell was completely free of any enemy presence. It was not until they reached the bottom of the stairs that they found the next enemy. Unfortunately, it was a powerful enemy. The group immediately recognized the stone statue as the Guardian General, a sub boss of the level from the last time they had ventured into the pyramid. Fortunately, they were better equipped to handle the Guardian General this time. As they approached the stone creature, the massive statue rose and began to walk towards them. The group retreated back up the stairs to take advantage of gaining the high ground. Jeff then drew out a Big Bottle Rocket and fired it at the Guardian General. The rocket streaked towards the Guardian General, leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. The rocket struck the statue in the chest and detonated, gouging a massive hole into the stone creature, spraying stone pieces from the wound. Still, despite the massive injury suffered by the Guardian General, the stone creature continued to charge the heroes. Paula then powered a blast of PSI Freeze Omega and unleashed it at the Guardian General. The snowflake of psychic energy struck the Guardian General and exploded in a shower of snowflakes, encasing the creature in ice, freezing it solid. Ness then drew out his bat and charged the creature and with a single swing, shattered the stone creature, bringing a swift end to the fight. With the Guardian General having been dealt with, the group proceeded into the next room.

In the subsequent room, the group was met by a Fierce Shattered Man, a Petrified Royal Guard, and a Guardian Hieroglyph. The trio of enemies immediately launched an assault on the heroes. The Fierce Shattered Man and the Petrified Royal Guard quickly charged the heroes in an attempt to close into melee range before they could launch any of their psychic attacks at them. Unfortunately, however, Jeff was faster on the draw than they were and he immediately opened fire with his Gaia Beam pistol and his remaining Big Bottle Rocket. His Big Bottle Rocket targeted the Petrified Royal Guard and rocketed towards the animated statue. The rocket struck home and detonated, reducing the Petrified Royal Guard to a pile of stone debris. Jeff also targeted the Fierce Shattered Man with his Gaia Beam pistol. He snapped off four shots towards the undead mummy. Each of the shots hit their mark, burning massive holes into the flesh of the mummy. After the final shot struck the mummy in the head, the Fierce Shattered Man fell over, never to rise again. That left only the Guardian Hieroglyph for Ness and Paula to deal with. The Guardian Hieroglyph let loose with a hacking cough, unleashing it in Jeff's direction, infecting the boy with a cold. Still, it was not enough to save the Guardian Hieroglyph. Ness immediately powered a PSI Rockin attack and unleashed it towards Guardian Hieroglyph. The ball of scarlet psychic energy streaked towards the animated drawing and stuck it, engulfing it in a massive globe of psychic energy. The globe remained for several seconds before dissipating, leaving no sign of the Guardian Hieroglyph. After the Guardian Hieroglyph was beaten, Ness went over to Jeff and then handed him one of his two remaining Refreshing Herbs. Jeff accepted the herb and ate it. The healing power of the herb immediately cured Jeff of his cold and returned him to normal.

After the room was cleared, Ness searched for the switch that would open the way to the lower passages of the pyramid. The group quickly found a panel jutting out of the floor to their right. Ness immediately stepped on it and it lowered. Immediately, the pyramid began to shake and dust fell from the ceiling. It was as if something was moving inside the pyramid. The group was not worried. They knew that it was just the tomb in the sarcophagus room revealing the secret passages to the areas beneath the pyramid. Still, before they left, though, the group headed over to the casket at the other end of the room. Ness approached the casket and pulled off its top. Inside the casket was nothing but a single pendant. He immediately recognized it as a Star Pendant since it was identical to the pendant that he was already wearing. He took the pendant and then handed it over to Paula. Her eyes flashed with surprise when Ness handed her the pendant. He motioned that she should take it. Paula then thanked Ness and accepted the Star Pendant. She took off the Sea Pendant and put it in her backpack. She then placed the Star Pendant around her neck. She immediately felt the defensive effects of the Star Pendent take effect. Once they had looted all of the treasure from the room that they could, the group headed back towards the sarcophagus room.

The journey back to the main tomb was uneventful since they had already cleared the area of enemies. Once they got back to the tomb, they found that it had already rolled back, revealing the hole that led deeper into the pyramid. Without any hesitation, the group immediately jumped down the hole, sliding along the wall for a while until they emerged in the catacombs beneath the pyramid. They emerged near an altar with only a Guardian Hieroglyph protecting the treasure on the altar. Ness and the others quickly ganged up on the Guardian Hieroglyph and beat it until it disappeared. The glyph never even had a chance to fight back. Once that enemy had been dealt with, the group headed towards the altar. They remembered that this was where they had gotten the Hawk-eye device in their last adventure. There was no Hawk-eye there now, though. Instead, there was a pendant placed on the altar. Jeff approached the altar and took a look at the pendant. It was another Star Pendant, just like the one that Ness had found in a casket on the floor above. He immediately took the Star Pendant and draped it around his neck. Even though he was not psychic, he could feel the effects of the Star Pendant the moment he put it on. Once the group was finished, they searched for the exit to the room. Paula, Poo, and Giygas could sense that they were getting close to the Sanctuary. They soon found the exit and headed into the next corridor.

In the next corridor, they found some more glyphs that wanted to kill them and stop their progress. Giygas merely stepped forward and unleashed a series of green energy blasts from his hands. The blasts instantly cut down the enemies with single hits. In mere seconds, the corridor and stairwell were clear. The group then proceeded to make their way up the stairwell to the top of the stairs. At the top of the stairs, they found the entrance to another room. They quickly entered the room.

Inside the room were a casket, a magic butterfly, a hole in the center of the room, and one more Guardian Hieroglyph. Ness was the one to deal with this enemy. The Guardian Hieroglyph tried to attack Ness, but he unleashed a blast of PSI Rockin at the drawing, instantly destroying it. The group then approached the magic butterfly and it flew on each of them, sprinkling some magic dust on them that completely replenished their psychic energy. Once their energy was restored, Ness went over to the casket to see if there was any treasure inside. After peeling off the lid, Ness peered into the casket. This casket was unoccupied, but it did have a single coin inside. Ness immediately recognized the coin as a Souvenir Coin. Ness reached in and grabbed the coin. The group then huddled near the hole in the center of the room, remembering that this hole led to the exit of the pyramid. After extending his psychic senses, Poo called out to the others, "The Sanctuary is beneath us." Then without any further delay, the group jumped down the hole and slid to the next underground passage, hoping that they would land on top of the next Sanctuary.

While they did not land on top of the Sanctuary, they did land on top of a Guardian Hieroglyph. The force of the impact with the teens crushed the hieroglyph before it knew what hit it. The group then proceeded into the next area.

The next area consisted of a very long corridor, and the Sanctuary. The Sanctuary was in the distance, marked by a swirl of white energy. However, before reaching the Sanctuary, the teens and Giygas would have to pass through a gauntlet of hieroglyphs. Two Guardian Hieroglyphs and two Lethal Asp Hieroglyphs barred the way to the Sanctuary. These enemies, however, were no match for the heroes, though. Giygas, however, did not want to waste any time with them, so he simply blasted them from afar with his energy blasts; four shots, four kills. Once the hieroglyphs had been dealt with, the group then approached the swirl of energy.

Once they had arrived at the swirl of energy, a voice reverberated throughout the corridor. "So, you all finally made it. This is the fifth 'Your Sanctuary" location, but now it's mine. Try and take it from me, if you're suicidal, that is…"

Just then, a massive human-like figure appeared before them. The mummy stood at over seven feet in height. It was wrapped in cloth and looked just like a mummy. "I am King Rottin Tootin, ruler of the Scaraban Pyramid and friend of Giegue. It is my mission to prevent you from accessing this Sanctuary at all costs."

With that, the massive mummy began to charge the heroes. He lashed out with a massive punch, but the quartet could see the attack coming from a mile away. They each deftly dodged the blow with ease, and King Rottin Tootin merely punched the ground, leaving a large hole, but not managing to hurt the heroes. Paula then performed a side kick to the chest of the mummy, but the kick barely fazed the mummy. The Rottin Tootin responded with a punch, which Paula barely managed to dodge. The punch sailed over Paula's head and she performed a leg sweep. This attack met with no success either as Paula nearly stubbed her toe against the massive leg muscles of Rottin Tootin. She was soon joined by Poo, who drew out his Sword of Kings and thrust the blade into the chest of Rottin Tootin. Much to Poo's shock, Rottin Tootin merely stood there and laughed. "Is that all you children can do?" he boomed. With a single swipe of his arm, he knocked Poo backwards, nearly knocking him unconscious with that single blow. Rottin Tootin then pulled Poo's sword out of his chest and threw it at Poo like a dagger. Poo dodged the incoming blade, barely managing to avoid being skewered the blade. It struck behind Poo and was imbedded in the ground. Poo then rushed over to pull the blade out of the rocky ground. He examined the blade. Fortunately, it seemed to be undamaged. Seeing that melee attacks and close combat was worthless against Rottin Tootin, Paula and Poo backed away toward Jeff and Ness. All the while, Giygas merely watched the battle unfold from behind the heroes. Despite how things looked now, he knew that they could beat this mummy. After scanning Rottin Tootin, he knew that the creature had a fatal weakness. And upon seeing Jeff draw out one of his Multi Bottle Rockets, he was now placing bets on how long Rottin Tootin would last.

Back at the battle, Rottin Tootin did not like Paula and Poo's retreat from him. "Come on cowards," he roared. "Fight me!"

The quartet did not respond, and they did not fall for his trick. They knew that he would slaughter them in close combat. But so far, he had demonstrated no ranged combat capabilities. This was something that they hoped that they could exploit. The group continued to retreat from the massive mummy as Jeff drew out a Multi Bottle Rocket. He placed the rocket on the ground and had it target the approaching Sanctuary Guardian. King Rottin Tootin laughed at the sight of the rocket. "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. You think that that toy is going to defeat me?"

"We're about to find out," Jeff said quietly in response to King Rottin Tootin's boast. He lit the fuse to the Multi Bottle Rocket and he and the others then retreated. Now, King Rottin Tootin came charging after the teens. As soon as the fuse burnt down to the rocket, the rockets took off from the base and streaked towards the charging mummy. The first rocket struck the mummy in the chest and blew a massive hole into his chest. The hole was large enough that the teens could see the swirl of Sanctuary energy on the other side of him. King Rottin Tootin roared in surprise and pain. Then the second rocket struck, and increased the size of the hole in his chest. Then the rest of the rockets struck the Guardian and blew him to pieces. By the time the rest of the rockets had finished firing, there was nothing left of King Rottin Tootin, and the pieces of him that did remain were engulfed by an unnatural blue fire and burned until there was nothing left.

Once the battle had concluded, the group made their way towards the white swirl of energy. Once they were close enough, Ness and Jeff stopped while Paula, Poo, and Giygas continued to approach. The group got out their Sound Stones and touched them to their heads as they entered the white swirl of light. The swirl of light then engulfed the psychic trio. Pieces of memories from their childhood sprang to the surface of their minds. Paula remembered a baby's crib, while Poo remembered an image of his mother, and Giygas remembered playing with Maria while he was young. During the images, a piece of the Eight Melodies played in their minds and singing voices could be heard as well. They each heard the words, "…_Raise your voices_…" Then, it was over and the swirl of energy vanished. Ness and Jeff then joined the others and with a single nod, the trio put away their stones and they headed up the stairwell and towards the blocked exit to the pyramid. Upon coming on the blockage, Giygas quickly fired a green beam of energy at the rock pile and blew a hole in it that the group could walk through. The group then proceeded through the hole, out of the pyramid, and into the desert.

Upon emerging in the desert, the group knew that they had a river to cross before being able to reach the Sky Runner II once more. Jeff, however, had considered this possibility and he brought out his remote. Upon pushing a button, the Sky Runner II rose into the air a distance away and immediately flew over to the party. There, it came until it was directly over the party. Then it descended until it was only a few feet above the ground. There it stopped and hovered over the teens, who backed away a bit. Soon, the boarding ramp lowered and touched the ground, inviting the group onboard. The quintet then proceeded to board the Sky Runner II. Once they were onboard, Jeff took the pilot's chair and retracted the boarding ramp. The craft then rose and rocketed into the air. Once they had gained sufficient altitude, they headed towards Scaraba, where they could rearm and refuel.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

The Sky Runner II made its way towards the town of Scaraba off in the distance. Onboard the flying saucer, Paula, Poo, and Giygas touched the Sound Stone to their foreheads. They had collected five melodies so far. Only three remained. The group knew that the Sanctuaries would not get any easier, though. If anything, they anticipated the Sanctuaries getting a lot more difficult from here on out. Ness went over to the copilot's seat to check the itinerary for the Sanctuaries and noted that the closest Sanctuary was at the true Stonehenge in England. That did not concern Ness at the moment, though. All that concerned him right now was getting to Scaraba so they could rearm and refuel the Sky Runner II. They would need the extra fuel to be able to reach the final Sanctuary on the moon. Ness then went to check the instruments to see how far away the town was. It was not far, as it was quickly approaching on the scanners. He looked out the window and saw the small town off in the distance. Jeff immediately slowed down the craft as he began his approach. Jeff rose from his station to go to the back cabin and was quickly replaced by Giygas.

Ness and the other teens went back to shower and put on fresh clothes. Still, their fresh clothes were merely identical copies of what they had previously been wearing. The heat out in the desert was still too intense for anything heavier than t-shirts and shorts for Ness and Paula. Poo merely exchanged his dirty gi for another. Jeff merely changed into another uniform identical to the last. When he emerged, the others looked at him, questioning his mental state for wearing a school uniform in what was almost certainly going to be temperatures in the high nineties to low one hundreds. Once they had finished changing, they quickly went back out to the cockpit.

Back in the cockpit, the group looked out the window and saw the town of Scaraba fast approaching below them. Since it was the middle of the day, the town streets were bustling with activity. Giygas turned back to the others and informed them, "We have just arrived over Scaraba. We should hopefully find a station where we can set down to refuel soon."

"I know of one," Poo volunteered. "When my people evacuated Dalaam, some of them came to Scaraba. We set up a station where we deal with exotic technology and materials and develop weapons, items, and gear from it, anticipating the possibility of a potential second invasion." It is not too far north from the main town center. It's also easy to spot. It'll look like a smaller version of the old Dalaamese Palace. There will also be several smaller buildings around it as well."

Giygas then looked at the instruments and at the Heads Up Display, which showed the image of the town beneath him. The Sky Runner II glided over the town and made its way to the outskirts. Giygas could sense the curiosity, and dread, of the people of Scaraba as the craft flew over the town. Scaraba had had its own share of deadly encounters with the Starmen and other PSI Alien soldiers in recent weeks. Even though the people of Scaraba were not particularly important targets, Giygas had initially told his former minions of reports of advanced human technology coming from somewhere in the town that was radically more advanced than normal human technology of the mid-twenty-first century. The Starmen's findings had been negative for any signs of such technology, though, and they moved on. With more important targets in the region, and the presence of Starmen in the pyramid, Giygas had supposed that there was no further need to explore Scaraba. If the humans had been developing advanced technology, or found some, they would use it soon enough. As such, Giygas had decided to leave Scaraba alone, despite his feelings that they may very well have been hiding something.

Giygas looked at the screen and thought he saw a structure on the screen that seemed to fit Poo's description of the station. Giygas then left the seat and let Jeff take the reins as he slowed the craft until he could bring it into hover near the station. Giygas looked at the HUD and saw a few people emerging from the building. He noticed that they were armed with bazookas and were even trotting out some energy cannons. He quickly scanned their minds and found that they were not trusting of the occupants of the craft. Jeff quickly activated the radio and broadcasted a signal, saying, "People of Scaraba Station, we are not Starmen. We are humans and are allies. Please respond."

Jeff waited by the radio to listen for a response before lowering the craft. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to fight off a group of humans that mistook them for enemies. The group really needed the fuel supplies that they could get from the station so they could make the trip to the moon and back. Eventually, a reply came through, "If you are friendly, authenticate with a proper passcode."

"Passcode?" Jeff asked, looking around. The others did not have any idea what to say, either. It was Giygas who then spoke.

"My minions, particularly my weaker minions, tried to infiltrate several human bases in the intervening years between the destruction of the first scouting fleet and the arrival of the vanguard fleet, but were constantly fought off by humans, diminishing our already low numbers. As a result, we began feigning that we were either defectors or allied humans, through the use of hologram technology. The humans caught on quickly and we were forced to try to guess passwords or codes. Needless to say, any ship or soldier that did not send the correct code was instantly destroyed."

"You don't happen to know any of the passcodes, do you?" Paula asked.

Giygas shook his head.

"You could convince them that we are allies, right Paula?" Jeff asked hurriedly. "You're a telepath. You could easily convince them that we're allies."

Paula took a step back. Ness joined her, standing at her side. "I, uh, don't feel comfortable using my powers in that way," she replied softly.

"We don't have much choice," Giygas contested. "If we don't give the proper codes, they'll blow us out of the sky."

"I might be able to help," Poo interrupted before the argument could go any farther. He then approached the radio and spoke into the speaker loud and clear, "The secret of Mu is that one must be able to endure the loss of ones life, limbs, and senses. Only then, can that person truly ascend to a new level of power and awaken the greatest power of the human will."

The group then waited for the response from below in suspense. They knew that if the response was not recognized that they would likely be fired upon. As a sign of good faith, Jeff had lowered the shields, which meant that a couple of missiles might be enough to inflict catastrophic damage to the Sky Runner II and cause it to crash. Eventually, a low, stern voice came through over the radio. "Passcode accepted. You may land," the male voice told them curtly. "Come to Hangar Bay Two. It is currently unoccupied."

"Understood," Poo answered. He then rose from the pilot's station and let Jeff retake the controls. Jeff guided his Sky Runner II over the small palace and towards a long building that Jeff took be a hangar bay. It was as long as the palace, but not nearly as wide. The Sky Runner II slowly descended once it was situated over the hangar bay. The roof of the hangar opened in order to accommodate the large, unfamiliar craft. Jeff delicately descended the Sky Runner and extended the landing pads as the craft was about to touch down. Soon, they were below the retractable roof and only a few meters off the ground. A second later, a clank was heard through out the ship as the Sky Runner II touched down on the ground. A vibration was felt as the ship touched down. Once the ship had landed, Jeff turned off all systems and lowered the boarding ramp. Before he disembarked from the ship, he made sure that he had a remote key and pad so he could call the ship if the need arose. Still, he suspected that he would not be going far from the ship, since he would have to oversee the refueling of the ship and requisition replacement weapons for those he had already used. He had a feeling that he was about to burn a hole in his bank account buying the necessary fuel and weapons. Still, it would all be worth it if it allowed them to reach the moon and claim that last Sanctuary. Jeff then caught himself. He still had two more Sanctuaries to go before they could even consider going to the moon Sanctuary.

The quartet then walked down the boarding ramp and onto the floor of the hangar bay. Coming in to meet the group were a man dressed in a regal purple robe, flanked by four guards in golden armor. Ness had a feeling that the armor was not just ceremonial, but fully functional since it resembled the robotic skin of an Omega Borg. The suited guards came up to greet the group. Ness took one look at the group and had a feeling that they had originally been from Dalaam, or were descendants of the people of Dalaam that had come to Scaraba to start over after their kingdom had been destroyed. The purple-robed figure took one look at the group, particularly at Poo, and gasped. "Prince Poo!" he exclaimed. The others quickly ran up to Poo, following the purple-robed figure, and stopped behind the figure as he approached Poo and knelt before the teen. A confused look crossed Poo's face.

"Do I know you?" he asked the group that was kneeling before him.

The leader rose and approached. "No, my prince, but we have heard of you. You were the one who saved our people from destruction at the hands of the alien invaders at the turn of the millennium. Your help is what allowed our small outpost at Scaraba to thrive and be able to help when the aliens returned. After your disappearance, many believed that you had died fighting the initial invasion in other parts of the world. Others merely thought that you were on an adventure to try to stop the invasion. When the aliens invaded again, we had given you up for dead, but here you are once more!"

Poo did not know how to respond to this treatment. He believed that they were treating him as some sort of legendary figure, which he may well be due to his psychic power. Even so, he was not comfortable with being viewed as a legend. "I'm sorry, but I am just here to help my friends and to rest so that my friend here," he motioned towards Jeff, "can refuel and rearm his ship."

The group then glanced over at Jeff and said, "Tell us what you need. Any friend of Prince Poo is a friend of ours. We'll give you anything and everything you need free of charge."

Jeff's eyes lit up at the mention of all of the weapons and supplies being free of charge. This meant that they could travel around town and buy some things that they wanted, rather than needed, since the Dalaamese people here would furnish them with all the weapons and items that they needed. The leader then told the others, "Feel free to look around all of Scaraba. Despite the war going on outside, there are still some very nice shops in town and some interesting people to meet."

Ness and Paula looked at each other and grinned, though for different reasons. Paula wanted to go shopping all around Scaraba, while Ness only wanted to find out some information, and maybe also search for some other items as well. Poo also wanted to take a look around Scaraba, particularly in the areas where his people were in control. He wanted to see if they had made more Brain Food Dinners and see what other items and weapons that they may have developed over the last several decades. Ness and Paula went back aboard the ship and into the cabin and got out two cell phones so they could keep in contact with Jeff and Poo. Once they had gotten the phones, Ness and Paula made their way out of the hangar and went out to explore the town of Scaraba. Poo also followed along with a few the descendants of his countrymen while Jeff went over to the engineer to discuss what was needed for the Sky Runner II. He would remain with the ship until they began to load the supplies. He still wanted to take some time to explore Scaraba to see how it had changed in the last few decades.

In Scaraba, Ness and Paula looked around at various shops and stores. Ness was mainly interested in sports stores and item shops while Paula's main interest was in jewelry stores and clothing boutiques. Despite being bored out of his mind while Paula explored the jewelry and clothing shops, Ness did not leave to search the stores of his interest until Paula was finished. Even though they were both powerful psychics, they figured that it was best to stay together for the time being, just in case a higher-ranking Starman like a Starman Deluxe or a Starman Warrior appeared. As for what Paula found in the clothing stores, she found little that piqued her interest. Most of the clothes consisted of heavy robes, scarves, headdresses and other such items, none of which she had any interest in.

Ness also took a look in the various sports stores and item shops. Most of what they sold was trinkets and sports equipment consisting of a variety of baseball bats, both wooden and aluminum, yo-yos, baseballs, gloves, soccer balls, etcetera. Nothing seemed to catch his eye. The same went for the item shops. They mostly sold only some Protein Drinks, water, and other items that were of little use. Nothing caught Ness's eye, so he soon left, with Paula following him.

Next, the duo headed into the marketplace. There were various merchant stalls and small shops, but nothing like the larger clothing stores and item shops that they had just emerged from. Ness and the others still took the time to check out the merchandise, hoping to find something that would be of value to them. While they were exploring the merchant stalls, something caught Paula's eye. She called over to Ness, "Hey Ness, take a look at this."

Ness went over to see what had caught Paula's eye. He looked at it and saw that it was a mushroom. The merchant, a middle aged Middle Eastern man with black hair, wearing a turban and an heavy robe, came over to the two of them and said, "I see that you have taken an interest in my Magic Truffle." Ness and Paula's eyes immediately lit up at hearing that. They had remembered from their previous adventure, the ability of the Magic Truffle to restore psychic energy. They restored a greater amount of psychic energy than any other food item that they had ever encountered. The merchant then continued, "These come all the way from the Lost Underworld and are quite rare outside of that place. They have special properties for some people, but for others, are merely a tasty mushroom. Normally, I would not part with them, but for you, I'll make an exception."

Ness and Paula figured that the man was not being entirely truthful and that he would have sold them to anyone who showed sufficient interest in them. Now, the only stumbling block to the sale was the fact that the two teens had no Scaraban currency. Paula then went up to the merchant and asked, "What type of currency do you accept?"

"I'll accept whatever type of money you've got," he responded.

Paula then asked, "How much to these Magic Truffles cost in terms of American dollars?"

The merchant then pulled out a calculator, obviously seeing what the exchange rate between a dollar and whatever unit of currency the Scarabans used was. "A bag of five Magic Truffles costs about a hundred American dollars. These are very rare mushrooms."

Ness and Paula soon figured out why the mushrooms must not have been selling very well. Still, knowing that there were three psychics on the team and that these Truffles would allow them to use their psychic powers more frequently, the group decided that it was best to stock up on the Truffles now. As such, Ness bought two bags for himself, and another two for Poo; and Paula bought two bags for herself. Once they were finished purchasing the mushrooms, the group went to search for other items, hoping to find some more useful items along with the bags of Magic Truffles that they had bought.

The rest of the stalls along the street, however, did not hold much in terms of items of interest. Still, exploring the market and the town was a good way to kill time while the Sky Runner II was being resupplied. Paula soon found an item of interest as she ducked into a small clothing shop while Ness waited outside. While none of the clothes inside the shop interested her, she did find a red jewel-studded hair ribbon in a case. The clerk noticed Paula taking an interest in the case and he went over to her. "Hello young lady," he said in a friendly tone and with a cheerful smile, "my name is Hassan, is there anything I can help you find?" he asked in a helpful tone.

"Actually, I've already found it," Paula replied. "I was looking at the hair ribbon in this case."

"Ah, you mean the Goddess Ribbon, correct?"

"Goddess Ribbon?" Paula asked, wondering what the merchant meant.

"The Goddess Ribbon was a ribbon that was fashioned from another ribbon that was taken from Starmen during the first battles against the invaders three years ago," Hassan explained. "The descendants of the people of Dalaam fashioned this ribbon and it is said to posses special properties, such as increasing one's resistance to injury in a battle. It may have other effects, but I am not certain of that."

"How much does it cost in dollars," Paula asked. "Do you accept dollars?" she added.

"Sure," Hassan replied. "As for the Goddess Ribbon's cost, it will be five thousand dollars, due to the special properties of this hair ribbon and the jewels that encrust it."

Paula's eyes went wide and her mouth hung open. "Five thousand?" Paula barely managed to get out, so great was her shock at the price. Hassan gave a melancholy nod. That was far too expensive for her, even though she did have the money to afford it. That was just too much for a single hair ribbon. Hassan seemed to understand. "I know it's expensive," he told her. "In fact, this ribbon retailed at another shop for an even greater price. The jewels are why it's so expensive."

Paula figured as much. She politely declined to buy the ribbon, saying, "Thank you, sir. The ribbon is beautiful, but it's a little out of my price range."

Hassan sighed and replied, "It's out of most people's price range, but still, do look around. Fancy ribbons and clothes aren't all we've got here." He directed Paula over to a case. "There may be something more to your liking in there."

Paula took a look into the case and she saw a series of metallic armbands. The gold ones caught her eye, as well as something else. She thought that she could sense something coming from the golden armbands, which was strange since Poo was the one who usually was sensitive to energy. She called Hassan over and asked, "Hassan, what is the price of these armbands?" Paula pointed at the golden armbands.

Hassan took one look at the armbands and looked back at Paula, replying, "Those armbands are pretty expensive for such pieces of equipment. However, there are special properties about them that are known. They have the ability to keep someone from being hypnotized. They are called Goddess Bands and they cost around two thousand dollars."

"I'll take one," Paula told him.

Hassan's eyes went wide at the statement. "You'll pay two thousand dollars for a metal armband, but the Goddess Ribbon is out of your price range?"

Paula smiled sheepishly. "I have a special use for this Goddess Band," she told him. She did not want to tell him that she sensed a greater power emanating from the Goddess Bands than from the Goddess Ribbon. She did not want him to raise the price any higher than it already was. Hassan then got the golden armband out of the case and gave it to her. Paula paid the man and she immediately placed the band around the wrist of her left arm. She could already feel the energy from the band flowing into her. She knew that she was now even more resistant to hypnosis than she had been before. She then drew out her Pixie's Bracelet and asked, "Um, do you accept other people's merchandise?"

"Sure," Hassan replied. "What do you want to sell?"

Paula laid the Pixie's Bracelet on the counter and answered, "This Pixie's Bracelet."

Hassan examined the bracelet and said, "I can give you eight hundred dollars for that bracelet."

Paula nodded and made the sale. After the sale was made, she thanked Hassan and walked away eight hundred dollars richer than she had been before.

Paula then rushed outside to meet Ness. Ness saw her running towards him in excitement and when she arrived, he asked, "What's got you so excited?"

"Ness, I found a merchant that sells Goddess Bands," she replied. "As you must know, they help protect against hypnosis and boost your resistance to injury. They cost a lot, though. Mine cost around two thousand dollars."

Ness decided that it was worth his while to go in and check out this Goddess Band, and possibly get one for himself, and maybe even Jeff as well. If nothing else, Ness figured that this would be a good opportunity to sell some of his unneeded items. He went into the small shop and followed Paula to the case that had the Goddess Bands. Ness took one look at the bands and, upon Paula's advice, called over Hassan. Hassan came over and asked cheerfully, "Greetings young sir. What may I help you find? Or have you already found what you're looking for?"

"I, uh, have already found what I'm looking for," Ness replied. He pointed at the Goddess Bands in the case.

"Ah, the Goddess Bands," he said, knowingly. "We just had another customer come in and buy one. They weren't selling all that well until now. The band will be two thousand American dollars."

Ness then asked, "Do you accept trade-ins?"

"Sure," Hassan replied. "I accept all types of trade-ins for a sale. What do you wish to trade in?"

Ness pulled out his Coin of Silence, which he had not sold yet despite already having gotten the superior Souvenir Coin. "Ah, a Coin of Silence," Hassan said, staring at the coin. "That has some pretty good trade-in value. For you, the price of the Goddess Band will only be one thousand dollars."

Before Ness paid the man, though, he asked, "Could I also have another band?"

Hassan's eyes lit up. "You want another Goddess Band, right?"

Ness nodded.

"Sure," Hassan replied in the same voice just like some of the traveling salesmen used when they made a sale. "It'll be full price, though," Hassan warned.

"That's okay," Ness replied. Ness then paid the three thousand dollars for both Goddess Bands. He made sure to get a separate receipt for both of them and to check the return policy so if Jeff did not want it, he could return the band. He also made sure that he would charge Jeff for the band he had gotten for himself. The band was just too expensive for him to be able to afford two of, but he did not want to stick Jeff with a massive bill of two thousand dollars. Once the two of them were finished, they headed back out onto the streets and continued to explore the town.

They walked around the streets for the better part of an hour, but they found nothing further of interest for them. However, before they decided to head back to the hangar, the duo turned down one more street. On this street, they found a mysterious man wearing a heavy cloak and turban who looked to be Caucasian. He also looked young, in his mid to late twenties. He saw the two kids approaching and looked over at them. The teens noticed his gaze and returned it.

"I can sense that you're powerful," the mysterious man told them. His accent seemed to be Irish. The fact that he said that he could sense their power did not escape their notice. The two turned to face him. Paula tried to sense whether or not the man was scanning them. One thing she knew, though, was that he was psychic, likely telepathic.

"Who are you?" Paula asked.

"Sean Cullen," the man responded. "And yes, I'm psychic, just like you, though nowhere near your power," he added sullenly.

"Why did you talk to us?" Ness asked.

"I sensed your power," Sean Cullen responded. "I have been spying on the Starmen and their allies for quite some time. My quest drew me to Scaraba. A group of Starmen had taken over the pyramid a ways south of the town, but they mysteriously disappeared not long ago. I guess you had something to do with that," he said conspiratorially.

"Actually, that may have been due to the massacre of the forces assaulting American cities in New York," Paula noted.

Sean chuckled. "Regardless, I've heard rumors of a band of humans attacking Starman bases. If the base in the pyramid has been conquered, then that means that the next closest base is at Stonehenge in England, since the false Stonehenge and base were destroyed a couple days ago." He then handed them a large scroll. "Stonehenge is a gateway towards the Faerie World, which is the supposed location of the next Starman base they call a Sanctuary. Getting there is complicated, though, and that's likely so that they know that someone's coming. The details are written on the paper, there."

Ness opened the scroll and saw a map of Stonehenge, both the current Stonehenge, as well as an overlay image of what Stonehenge looked like when it had first been completed. The way to get to the Faerie World, and to the next Sanctuary, is noted on the paper. Follow the instructions precisely because if you slip up, you'll have to start over from the beginning."

Ness rolled up the scroll and thanked Sean. Before they could leave, though, Sean stopped them, calling, "Wait!"

The group stopped and he rushed after them. He soon reached into his robe and pulled out a red ribbon. "This is an Angel Ribbon," he explained. "It was blessed by a priest many years ago. It is said to have miraculous properties should you pray for assistance from God. It will also help you see through illusion and increase your resistance to damage. It belonged to my late grandmother. I have scant use for it, but considering where you're going, and that the Faerie World is full of illusion, it should help you immensely." He then handed the ribbon to Paula.

Paula looked at Sean. "I cannot accept this," she said, shocked at the prospect of taking such a gift.

"Take it," Sean insisted. "I have no use for it. I have no wife or kids. You have much more use for it than I do."

Eventually, Paula accepted the ribbon, saying, "Thank you," her voice full of surprise and thanks. She then took off her Defense Ribbon and tied the Angel Ribbon into her hair. She instantly felt her durability increase, as well as a refreshing sensation come through her. "Before you go, know this," Sean cautioned. "The Faeries are a lot more powerful in the Faerie World than they are in our world. Be prepared for some vicious battles once you enter their world. The Faeries do have their weaknesses, though, particularly to iron or steel, and electricity. Also, silver is said to irritate them, but it in and of itself is not fatal to them. You would still have to strike a fatal blow with silver, but even a scratch from an iron or steel weapon is like you getting injected with quart of plutonium. Also, even before the alien invasion, there have been myths and legends of wicked Faeries taking children from their homes and replacing them with Changelings. While most of these stories _are_ myths, some are true. The children that are kidnapped are often turned into servants of the Faeries. There have been reports of children missing in Ireland, England, and Scotland, as well as from a few other countries, including America. You may encounter some of them and be forced to fight them." He then let that sink in for a moment.

"Is there anything we can do to save them?" Ness and Paula asked in unison.

Sean Cullen nodded. "There is, but it's going to be difficult. They won't necessarily be freed by use of electroconvulsive therapy, so you'll have to counter magic with prayer. Sprinkle holy water on them and say, 'By the power of Our Lord, you are free.' That will be enough to free them without using any extra violence. The only other way to free them is to kill them and then revive them, something that shouldn't be too difficult for powerful psychics, but there is potential for such actions to result in permanent death since it is possible to cause such great harm to a body that revival is impossible. I'd stick with the holy water. It's more reliable." Before they left, Sean handed Ness and Paula two vials of holy water for them to use against any children that they came across.

"Thank you, again," Paula told Sean as she and Ness accepted the vials of holy water. Once they were finished, the two of them departed. As they left, Sean called after them, "Good luck, and may the Lord and his Angels and Saints watch over you!"

"And you, too," Ness and Paula called back in return.

The duo then continued down another street where they found a much shadier man, wearing a cloak and turban that looked reminiscent of a military uniform, waiting in the shadows. He came out to them and said, "I heard that you guys were goin' into the fire. If you're goin' there, then you're gonna need some proper supplies." He then went over to a bench where he had a display of a variety of weapons. Ness noticed the Super Bombs that were laid out in plain sight. The arms dealer noticed the teens' interest in the weapons. "These babies here can blow up a tank in a single hit," he boasted. Ness knew first hand the power of Super Bombs. But in the end, he decided that the arms dealer was just a little too shady. "Thank you, but I think we're going to be fine," he told him. The two then headed out of the alley and back to the ship.

While Ness and Paula were exploring the town of Scaraba, Poo was busy negotiating with his people over the prices of some types of exotic weapons, such as Thunder bombs and Iron Bombs. His countrymen had said that each of those weapons would prove highly effective in dealing with Faeries in the Faerie World, where they were at their strongest. The Iron Bombs, however, were quite limited in their utility. They were like fragmentation grenades, rather than heavy weapons. They were of little use against tanks and strong opponents with shields, such as Starmen. However, against the Faeries, they would be death. It was the same with the Thunder Bombs as well. They were powerful against the Faeries, as well as enemies that were vulnerable to electricity, but little else. Also, unlike the standard munitions and fuel that was currently being loaded onto the Sky Runner II, the Thunder Bombs and Iron Bombs were not free of charge. The former Dalaamese were charging Poo for such exotic and time-consuming weapons to build. The current price was five hundred dollars for full supplies of each weapon. Eventually, Poo agreed to the price. He figured that it was a fair price for the number of each bomb that they were getting and that these items would prove to be invaluable since they would allow the group to use these items rather than their own psychic powers against the Faeries.

That brought Poo to the next item that they would have to negotiate the price of, Brain Food Dinners. These were identical to the item that Poo had made for and given to Ness for his birthday. They could completely restore a person to full physical and psychic health, just like a Brain Food Lunch would do for him. Poo had been haggling over the price for a large supply of such items for over an hour. Still, the Dalaamese sellers would not give them the items for less than eight hundred and seventy dollars. Still, it was better than the price of the Thunder and Iron Bombs. After the two sides agreed on the price, they had given Poo the check, which he paid, and they began loading the Thunder Bombs and Iron Bombs, and the instant Brain Food Dinners onto the Sky Runner II, in addition to rearming and refueling the craft. They also loaded extra crates full of fuel cells onto the ship so that the Sky Runner II would have enough fuel to not only reach the moon, but also make it back. Poo was not happy about paying more than a thousand dollars for some healing items and some one-time use bombs, but these bombs would be important in the Faerie World and the Brain Food Dinners would be godsends for Ness and Paula should they need them in the Faerie World, Lava Mountain, or on the Moon.

It was not long before Ness and Paula arrived back at the hangar. When they entered, they saw the technicians and drivers loading crates and weapons onto the Sky Runner II. Jeff was directing the traffic and the refueling as well. Ness quickly went up to him and called, "Hey Jeff, can we talk for a second?"

Jeff motioned for the loaders to continue as he went down to talk to Ness. When he arrived, he asked his friend, "Sure, what is it?"

Ness replied, "I got something for you in Scaraba. However, it cost a lot of money."

"So you're going to charge me," Jeff finished with a chuckle. He then waited for a few moments before continuing. "Okay, what is it?"

Ness got out the golden armband from his backpack. Jeff immediately recognized this. "This is a Goddess Band," he said in amazement. "These things can protect someone from hypnosis."

"I know," Ness said. "I thought that you could use one, especially considering where we are about to go."

"And you bought this from somebody?" Jeff asked, scarcely believing that someone could have found one, or even more than one.

Ness nodded, and got out the receipt to show Jeff. He got out the receipt that only came to a thousand dollars, though, since he did not want to cheat Jeff. Jeff took a look at the bill and saw the enormous price tag. His eyes widened, but he did not gasp. "What was it originally?" he asked.

"Two thousand dollars," Ness replied. Jeff eventually wrote out a check to Ness for the thousand and accepted his Goddess Band. Ness accepted the check and pocketed it. He would cash it once he got back to Saturn Valley. Now, all the group could do was wait for the hangar bay staff to finish loading the supplies onto the ship and refueling it.

After another hour, or so, the hangar bay personnel had finished loading the cargo onto the Sky Runner II. Once they were finished, Poo paid the price for the use of the hangar. Once the price tag was totaled with the other expenditures he had made, Poo was only left with eight thousand dollars on him. It was still a lot of money, though. Once the hangar crew was finished and had left, the group boarded their vessel and checked from top to bottom in order to make sure everything was okay. That was when Giygas had emerged from the cabin. He came out and noticed them checking over the ship. He said, "Don't worry. The ship is in perfect condition. There were no spies onboard. Besides, my people already know where we're going next."

That answer gave the group little comfort. However, the ship was still fully stocked, fueled, and ready to go. All they had to do now was wait to be cleared for takeoff. The crew of the Sky Runner II soon took their stations with Jeff being the pilot, Ness the copilot, Paula and Poo as gunners, and Giygas at the engineering and tactical station. Soon a voice crackled in over the radio, "Sky Runner Two, you are cleared for takeoff."

The roof then retracted and Jeff could see stars in the evening sky. By the time they would reach Stonehenge in England, it would be nightfall. Now that Ness thought about it, he was wondering if the fact that it was night would have any effect on how the mission would unfold. He shook off the thought and focused on his task. Once the hangar bay roof was fully retracted, Jeff initiated the ascent of the Sky Runner II. The flying saucer rose into the air, slowly at first so that there would be no accidents. Once they had cleared the roof, though, the ascent was much more rapid. Once they had achieved a sufficient height, the Sky Runner II took off towards in the northwest direction, its destination, England, and the real Stonehenge.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13:

Giegue stood regally on the bridge of his city-sized flagship. He gazed out the window of the bridge and saw the red planet of Mars come into his view. The fleet had already formed up around him and they were assuming orbit over the planet. He extended his psychic senses towards the Red Planet to see if the humans had any forces on the planet. He knew that in his minions' excitement to take down the human race that they may have overlooked the fourth planet of the solar system. He sensed no sentient life on the surface. His soon expanded his sense to scan the Earth as well. When he scanned the Earth he felt that the planet was emanating less Sanctuary Energy than before. He gave a shrug. That meant that another Sanctuary had been taken by the humans and his older brother. He then turned to the helmsman and commanded, "Take us out of orbit and get us back on course for Earth. There's nothing important here."

"Yes, my lord," the helmsman responded.

Giegue turned to an older male PSI Alien who was sitting next to him in the executive officer's chair and he said, "Schweigh, take over for me. I'll be in my quarters."

"Yes, my lord," the PSI Alien answered as he rose from his chair and sat down in Giegue's chair. Giegue almost lamented that the only thing his subordinates, even the subordinate PSI Aliens, ever said to him was, "Yes, my lord." There were perks to ruling the most powerful race in existence, but he was beginning to wish that they had a little more personality. Anyway, there was little point dwelling on it. He wanted to go back into his quarters so he could have some fun in the midst of all the stress. The door that led off the bridge slid open and Giegue stepped through, making his way to his quarters.

When he arrived at his quarters, he pushed a button on the side panel and the silver door to his opulent quarters slid open. When he stepped in he immediately went to the bedroom where Miridhel was stationed. Upon entering the bedroom, he saw a look of absolute terror etched on Miridhel's face as she looked up at him. He knew what this was the prelude to…bad news.

"Okay, what is it now?" he asked, shrugging then casting his eyes towards heaven.

"W…w…we've just r..r.r…received reports coming from Earth," she stammered in fear.

"What reports?" Giegue boomed. This shook Miridhel to her core and she nearly collapsed into tears. After a few moments of Giegue's staring, which only served to unnerve her more, she managed to emit a response.

"My lord, we've lost the Sanctuaries in Atlantis and in what the humans call the Scaraban Pyramid."

"What?" Giegue gasped, his eyes unable to hide his shock. He had always viewed the Scaraban Pyramid Sanctuary as being vulnerable to capture since the destruction of the fleet and the assault forces in America. However, the loss of Atlantis's Sanctuary surprised him greatly. First of all, it was underwater, an environment alien to the humans and even to his people. Secondly, Chimeron was able to reflect psychic attacks so even if Giygas had managed to get down there, there was still a chance that he could be killed. "It gets worse, my lord," the Elf girl stammered.

_Oh no_, Giegue thought with dread. The only way it could get worse was if Atlantis itself, and all of its people, were killed. His worst fears were soon confirmed by Miridhel. "My lord, the city of Atlantis was destroyed in the process. As of yet, there are no survivors."

_Damn_, he swore to himself. The Atlanteans were one of the few people that were completely loyal to him. They had sworn their allegiance to him and him alone, and not to any other, not even to another PSI Lord. Any and all encounters they had with Giygas were on Giegue's orders. That left only the Faeries of the Faerie World that were completely and unequivocally loyal to him. All of the other forces were loyal to whoever was in charge, and many of the Starmen had been more loyal to Giygas, and Goog before, than they had been to him.

"I guess that Giygas was present during the destruction of Atlantis," Giegue growled.

Miridhel nodded. "He was not only there, Master, he was also the one who destroyed Atlantis."

Giegue gritted his teeth. That clinched it for him. There was no way in the universe that his brother was loyal to him. Even if he did somehow do this with the intention of betraying the humans, there was still the fact that Giegue's own loyal servant races were getting the axe. This meant that the only two possibilities were that Giygas was, indeed, working with the humans and that he had turned on his own species; or that he was still loyal to the PSI Lords, but was planning a power play by taking out all of Giegue's supporters. Giegue had always known that the Starmen had preferred Giygas to him, and they would understand Giygas sacrificing a great deal of them if it meant that he was only trying to usurp Giegue's power and ensure the survival of his people. He then sensed another presence enter his quarters. He lowered his eyes. There was only one person who could enter his quarters undetected until he crossed the threshold, and even then, it was only because the one who entered broadcast his presence. Giegue turned around and saw another PSI Lord standing in the doorway to his bedroom.

"Miridhel, keep scanning your crystal ball," he ordered. "I'll be speaking with my father for a few moments. Under no circumstances are you to leave my bedroom."

"Understood, my lord," the beautiful High Star Elf responded. She then returned her gaze towards the crystal ball.

Giegue and Goog made their way into the living room. The door to the bedroom slid shut and a hiss could be heard, indicating that a sound shield was now active.

"Your clairvoyant servant is hot," Goog commented. "I can see why you keep her around despite the fact that all she seems to do is give you bad news in recent times."

"She has…other attributes," Giegue replied lecherously.

"I did not come to see your pleasure slave," Goog said harshly, changing the subject. "I came to discuss our next move."

"We'll proceed as planned," Giegue replied. "We still haven't gotten to Earth yet."

"Perhaps we should speed up the time table for the invasion and destruction of the humans," Goog suggested. "We've lost five Sanctuaries to the humans and the Atlanteans are now extinct at the hands of your older brother. What are you going to do about that?"

"Why do you care?" Giegue retorted. "You always preferred Giygas to me until he failed to destroy the humans on his first visit to Earth."

"I preferred him merely because he was the older son," Goog countered. Giegue knew that his father was lying, but he did not call him out on it or challenge him. "I was never more disappointed than when I saw him return from his failed invasion and say that it was because a group of humans, one of them being Maria's descendant, sang a song to him that Maria used to sing to him when he was a child."

"I could have told you that big brother didn't have it in him to kill off the humans," Giegue said casually.

Goog nodded. "I know, and you did," he grumbled. He then paused, putting his mind back to what he was going to tell his son. "Getting back on track, though, we've still got three Sanctuaries left. The closest one to the Pyramid, however, is Stonehenge and its gateway to the Faerie World. If we lose that Sanctuary, and possibly the Faeries, then we could be in trouble."

"I agree," Giegue stated, casting a downward glance. "I'll order all of my forces to retreat back to the Sanctuaries at once."

"No!" Goog blurted. "Our remaining Earth forces are no match for Giygas at this moment. I only want you to send token defenses to the next Sanctuaries and call the Starmen back to Mount Itoi. We'll have to hope the Guardians and their normal forces will be up to the challenge of beating Giygas and the humans."

"But what should I say to the Starmen and the others?"

"Explain the situation to them. They'll understand. We can't afford to lose any more of them; not until the fleet achieves orbit over Earth and we can send down reinforcements."

"I see," Giegue replied. "And the Guardians?" he asked.

"Tell them…they're on their own."

The Sky Runner II flew northwest towards England at a blistering speed. Jeff did not want to waste any time reaching Stonehenge. He and the other humans had a bad feeling that the PSI Aliens would not take long to regroup from the loss of their fleet in orbit and the troops lost in the New York Massacre. Jeff had been broadcasting his IFF code on all channels, identifying the Sky Runner II as friendly, so that the British Air Force and other air forces would not attack them. Jeff had set the Sky Runner II on autopilot so that he could go back into the cabin so they could plan their next move together. Jeff huddled in with the other humans on the floor of the main cabin with Giygas standing back a bit. Ness took out the scroll that he had gotten from Sean Cullen and unfolded it. On the scroll was a display of the Stonehenge monument in England. Overlaid onto the map was the image of Stonehenge as it had originally been when it had been completed. There were also notes in the corners of the large scroll and throughout the diagram. There were also markings and numbers around several of the stones and even in a few empty spaces. The human quartet studied the map intensely while Giygas stayed back, keeping his psychic senses open so that they would not be caught in an ambush by any UFOs. Giygas still decided that it would be a good idea to listen in on their conversation and offer any advice should they need it. After a while, the discussion on their plan of attack began.

"It looks like this is going to be the most complicated Sanctuary to get to yet," Ness began. "We first have to get to Stonehenge without being shot down. Given that it is one of the only two Sanctuaries on Earth remaining, I don't think that it'll be unprotected."

"Yeah," Jeff agreed. "Especially given the losses that the PSI Aliens suffered to their fleet and to the assault forces in the Massacre in New York. If I were them, I'd consolidate their forces near the Sanctuaries since they are our targets and we seem to be the only ones that are a threat to their real forces."

"But you're not them," Giygas chimed in. "The Starmen are a bit like my people. They are cocky, proud, and arrogant. They still think that they can do a number on the humans, and they can. They also have faith in the defenses of their Sanctuaries, particularly Stonehenge. And I can't blame them. Stonehenge is only the gateway to the next Sanctuary, which is in the Faerie World. And that Sanctuary is protected by a legion of Faeries of all kinds. The Faeries that you have faced before are only the tip of the iceberg. Not only that, but in the Faerie World, Faeries are a lot more powerful than they are in our world. And you will be weaker since you have to deal with the magical currents that run through that world, which can disrupt your concentration, and cause your psychic powers to not work properly, if at all. And that's before you have to deal with their illusions."

"I wouldn't be too worried about that," Paula said. "My new Angel Ribbon will help me see through the illusions, and I should be able to concentrate enough to allow help Ness and Jeff see through the veil as well."

"I'll also be okay due to my Brain Stone," Poo added.

"Okay, that's good," Ness said approvingly. "That's two confirmed psychics who should be able to use their powers without any issues, likely three," he added, indicating Giygas. "Okay, next up is weaponry. We'll be going into the Faerie World with a different loadout than what we are usually carrying. Faeries are vulnerable to iron and lightning so we'll be using these Iron and Thunder Bombs against them when we go into the Faerie World." Ness held up one of each bomb for the others to see. "Make sure you take as many of these bombs as you can carry. They'll be essential for our trek, especially since we'll want to conserve our psychic energy for the later battles."

"We should also use any iron-based weapons that we have at this time," Jeff added.

"I've got my Non-Stick Fry Pan," Paula volunteered. "That's made out of cast iron."

"I've got my sword, and my other psychic attacks," Poo added.

Ness smiled. He knew that they were properly equipped. He glanced over to Jeff. "That just leaves us. Both Jeff and I will be armed with iron bats and clubs so we can engage Faeries in close combat should that be necessary. Still, I want to do our best to avoid getting into close combat situations against the Faeries," he advised them. "They'll be a lot more powerful in the Faerie World than in our world and they will likely have a significant numerical advantage whenever we engage them so it would be best for us to engage them at range so as to avoid being swamped by superior numbers."

The others nodded their heads in agreement. Giygas merely watched the proceedings with amused interest. He was surprised that the children sitting in front of him were actually planning their next move carefully, rather than going into the mission half-cocked, as so many other youth do, and getting themselves killed. They clearly understood the gravity of the situation that they were about to enter. This was one of the toughest Sanctuaries to raid. It was then that Giygas told them what they could expect.

"You all should also know that Faeries won't be the only enemies you'll encounter," Giygas began. "You can also expect to face off against Starmen, and possibly Starman Warriors as well. You may also face Elves and what you can Roswell Grays as well. The Faeries are quite loyal to my people so don't show any mercy when you fight them. They'll show none to you or to any of their human servants or captives. Don't be surprised if they use enthralled children or other innocents as weapons against you."

"We already have the items necessary to free them," Paula assured him.

"Good," Giygas responded. "Because the Faeries have no honor at all. They will involve the innocent and the good as well."

"Uh, guys, I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here," Jeff interjected. "We still have to get to Stonehenge. We have to know what type of defenses that the Starmen will have around the site. We're going to be leaving the ship for a while and it will take a long time to activate the portal that leads into the Faerie World."

Giygas had no problem with Jeff's interruption. "A good question," he told Jeff. "As you surmised earlier, it is likely that a smart commander would consolidate their forces around their most important bases and only send out small sorties until the rest of the fleet arrived." Giygas paused before continuing, "However, my younger brother is not a smart commander. He'll likely have ordered the Starmen to continue their attacks on Earth targets. You see Earth is a valuable planet due to its beauty and variety of plant and animal lifeforms, even with the recent nuclear war and the current invasion. Very few planets known planets in the galaxies that we have encountered and spread through can match it in beauty, and in my opinion, none have surpassed it. My people want Earth to be a new base world for them." Giygas then paused for a second before continuing, "As for my people's defenses. I would expect them to have a sensor grid all around Stonehenge designed to find any enemy craft. However, their sensors tend to be much like your radar. Fly low enough and you could avoid detection. It would have to be really low, though, like only a few dozen feet above the surface at most."

Jeff nodded.

"Is there anything else we need to know?" Poo asked Giygas.

"Not much," Giygas replied casually. "There are going to be multiple types of Faeries that you'll encounter in the Faerie World. You can, and likely will, face Goblins, Trolls, Mermaids and Mermen, Pixies, the types of Faeries that you might be familiar with from children's stories, Elves, etcetera. Do note that the Elves of the Faerie World are different from the Elves that you have fought here. These Elves have far more magical power, but are also far more vulnerable to psychic power than the ones of our world."

"Can we expect them to mount a strong defense close to the portal?" Paula asked. "They'll have to know that we're coming."

Giygas nodded. "Yes. In fact, that was why they created the new requirements for entering the Faerie World in the first place, and why they used Stonehenge. It's easy enough for us to use, and for them to see who's coming. Since I am undoubtedly known as a collaborator now, I doubt that I'll be welcome. You will have to be careful. The battle at the entrance may be the largest battle that you'll face in the Faerie World."

Paula nodded, indicating that she understood what was being said, as did the rest. Before adjourning, though, Giygas did have one more thing to add. "Oh, just as a suggestion. I suggest you all wear some form of steel armor, especially you Paula. Faeries are attracted to beautiful human females of any age. The armor will protect you from their touch. And for the rest of you, it will aid you immensely in close combat should the Faeries engage you in hand to hand combat."

The others nodded. Paula, however, was not worried about the magic of the Faeries in the slightest. Underneath her shirt, she wore a crucifix and carried a Prayer to Saint Joseph Card in her pocket so she felt safe in terms of fighting Faeries. She still decided to wear the armor, though, but she was not helpless without it. After that, the group decided to adjourn and prepare themselves for the journey ahead. Ness and Paula went to their pallets so that they could rest up for the journey and mentally prepare for the tough road ahead. Poo remained on the floor and meditated on the same thing. Jeff and Giygas went back out into the cockpit and took the pilot and copilot's stations respectively. They had to guide the craft to Stonehenge and manage to land it in one piece. Jeff glanced over at the sensor display, seeing if they were being followed or if any other aircraft, human or UFO, had detected them. So far, there was nothing on the sensors. Still, he was keeping his eyes open. UFOs tended to appear pretty quickly, and they were fast approaching England. It would not be long before they reached Stonehenge.

Just as Jeff was beginning to wonder if any of the UFOs of the Starmen would detect them, four blips appeared as small dots on the sensor screens. At this distance, though, Jeff could not tell whether they were human aircraft or UFOs. Jeff turned to Giygas. "I've picked up four unidentified blips. Can you sense the pilots?"

"Yes," Giygas responded in a low voice. "They're Starmen."

That was all Jeff needed to hear. "Raise shields and power the weapons," Jeff ordered. Giygas complied, his hands rushing over the console, pushing a series of buttons. A soft hum that was heard for a second that rose in pitch indicated that the shields were active. Jeff checked the weapons screens and found that the quad energy cannons were charged to full power. Still, Jeff did not want this to be a dogfight. He wanted to take care of the UFOs as quickly as possible. He could do so easily with the air-to-air missiles onboard the Sky Runner II. Not only that, but if they were out of the UFOs' weapons range, they may think that it was merely an Earth jet fighter that took down the UFOs.

Continuing to guide the Sky Runner II towards Stonehenge, Jeff let Giygas control the weapons. Of the weapons selections, Giygas selected the air-to-air missiles and targeted the four approaching UFOs. He knew from his own experience with such craft that they would now be able to identify the Sky Runner II, and that they would know that it was not one of theirs. Giygas also knew, though, that these pilots were arrogant. They would not contact Mount Itoi or any minor bases and inform them of the approaching threat until after they had shot down the unknown human craft. Giygas grinned. That would be a fatal mistake, and one that he and the humans would take advantage of very quickly.

Giygas had the targeting sensors of the human built flying saucer target the four UFOs. He selected four of the air-to-air missiles, and when he was ready, he pushed the firing button. "Fire in the sky!" he cried as he launched the missiles. It was a cry that was often echoed by the Starmen when they shot down an opposing enemy ship or aerofighter.

The missiles were disgorged from the belly of the Sky Runner II and they used their maneuvering thrusters to turn and rocket towards the four oncoming UFOs, a trail of smoke blazing behind the missiles. Giygas extended his telepathic senses beyond visual range and watched from the eyes of the Starman pilots as they caught sight of the incoming enemy missiles. The four UFOs banked sharply to their right and left, but two of them had the extreme misfortune of banking into each other. The scraping of the hulls of the ships could be heard as their hulls deformed and the craft shook. This did nothing to help them escape the Sky Runner II's missiles as the missiles merely turned and impacted the two wounded craft. The missiles struck the two stricken UFOs and detonated. Their explosions blew apart the Fighter UFOs, reducing them to piles of scrap metal. The debris from the two UFOs rained down upon the landscape. The other two UFOs had fortunately not collided with each other in their attempts to evade the missiles and, thus, lasted longer than their cohorts. However, they too would eventually fall to the same fate. The lead UFO juked and jived in order to avoid the incoming missile. It was successful for a time, but soon, the missile managed to catch up and it impacted the rear end of the ship and detonated. The rear half of the ship was completely blown out. Fires spread inside the ship and ignited the fuel stores and crew members of the UFO. The doomed craft listed downward and within a couple of seconds exploded in midair, leaving nothing but a burning wreck of a shell hurtling down to the Earth, where it crashed and was even more twisted and deformed. The final UFO in the group fared little better. As the ship tried to maneuver itself away from the missile, the missile managed to clip the craft on its starboard tip. The impact with the ship caused the missile to detonate and blow a hole into the starboard side of the ship. The hole was large enough, and the damage to the engines and repulsor lift drive of the ship was great enough, that it was not able to remain in the air. As the craft tilted downward and began to fall out of the sky, the pilot tried to send a message to any and all other UFOs in the area, alerting them to the Sky Runner II's presence. Giygas, however, activated the radio and sent out an EM pulse that jammed the communications of the UFO. He also sent out a pulse of telepathy in order to jam any telepathic communications. Jeff had been flying low enough that they would likely have been able to avoid any radar or radar-like sensors of the Starmen. Had Giygas known that Giegue had since called back all of the UFOs, except for a few conducting sorties against various human installations in order to maintain the illusion that they were not in desperate straights and to keep the humans off balance so they would not attack, he would have not been so cautious. But he figured that it was better to be safe than sorry. Even had he known that Giegue had called back almost all of the support that he was giving to the Sanctuaries, he would have still jammed the communications. The longer Giegue and the other PSI Lords could go without knowing how many Sanctuaries were lost, the better. Giygas felt the last thoughts of the Starman pilot of the final doomed UFO as it crashed into the ground and exploded like a missile. Four Fighter UFOs were down, and the Sky Runner II had suffered no damage. Before powering down the defensive systems in order to avoid further risk of detection, Giygas extended his psychic senses one more time around the ship in order to make sure that there weren't any more attacks being launched. There were none. After the threat had passed, Giygas powered down the defensive systems of the Sky Runner II and he relaxed for a moment. He then continued to use his own psychic powers to scan the surrounding environment. All the while, Jeff had concentrated on getting to Stonehenge as quickly as possible. When the battle was over, though, he had offered Giygas a high five in celebration. Not knowing what that was, though, Giygas was confused and did not respond, since he was still concentrating on making sure that there were no other enemy craft or other enemies in the area.

Meanwhile, back in the cabin, Ness and Paula had awakened from their nap and were studying the layout of Stonehenge some more. They were paying particular attention to the stones and holes that they had to walk to and 'activate', often by striking, if it was a stone, or by releasing a current of energy, if it was a hole. As it was, there were nine points and they had to run around the perimeter of the entire site twice in clockwise rotation before they could start striking stones or powering holes. After powering the first hole or striking the first stone, they would then have to run around the entire perimeter of the site again counterclockwise before being able to strike the second stone or power the second hole. Paula had referred to this as 'breaking the seals'. Ness had agreed with Paula's short hand phrase as well. They would then have to run clockwise to the next seal so they could 'break' it. They would continue to do this until all nine seals were broken. As each seal broke, the stone that was struck, or the hole that was activated, would glow. The diagram also said that if the wrong stone was struck or the wrong hole was filled with energy, all lit stones or holes would go dark, indicating that they would have to start over again. It was definitely complicated, but as long as there was no interference, they figured that they would be able to get it right on the first try. Of course, they both knew that the Faeries would be using the time that the teens took breaking the seals to fortify their positions and to assemble near the gate so that they would be ready to intercept any attacker.

After about an hour, the Sky Runner II was coming up on Stonehenge. So far, besides the four Fighter UFOs, they had not encountered any further resistance to their approach to Stonehenge. In no way did this put Jeff or Giygas at ease, though. If anything, they only became more tense as they approached the gateway to the next Sanctuary. Soon, Jeff took a look at the map to see how close they were. Upon seeing that they were around seventy miles from Stonehenge, Jeff throttled back so that they could fly lower to the ground more safely. Not only that, but he figured that the slower and more casually they flew, the less likely that they would be detected by any early warning systems around Stonehenge.

Giygas then rose from his station and went back to the cabin where Poo was still meditating and Ness and Paula were still going over the plans to Stonehenge. They had already found several spots where Starmen or other soldiers for the PSI Aliens could hide and attack while they were breaking the seals that would allow the gateway to the Faerie World to open up before them. Giygas entered the cabin and told them, "We are approaching Stonehenge. You should gear up and prepare for the journey ahead."

Ness and Paula nodded. Poo opened his eyes suddenly and rose from his position and followed Ness and Paula as they got their new weapons ready and donned their armor. It still resembled their previous clothing somewhat, but was long-sleeved and over their torsos were steel plates of armor inside the clothing that offered them the equivalent of Level IV protection. Paula was dressed in a long-sleeved blouse with the plates of armor underneath her clothing, and long pants. Paula wanted to ensure the maximum amount of protection of her body while maintaining her mobility. She smiled. Any Faeries that tried punch her in the torso would get a very unwelcome surprise. She also wore iron gauntlets instead of her Goddess Band for added protection against Faeries in close combat. Ness also wore a striped long-sleeved t-shirt with iron plates of armor underneath. Poo also donned iron armor beneath his gi. The teens took a few moments getting used to the armor and moving around with it. The one who seemed to be most affected was Paula, but she quickly managed to adapt to the new armor. Ness and Poo had much less trouble adapting to the armor.

Once they had donned their armor, they went for their weapons. Poo merely grabbed his Sword of Kings, which already had steel in its crafting so he was set for close combat. He then grabbed as many Iron and Thunder Bombs as he could fit in his backpack, five of each. He also made sure to take his Cup of Lifenoodles, his Life Up Creams, Sound Stone, and his bags of Magic Truffles as well. He knew that he would be using his psychic powers often in the Faerie World. The others then took hold of their weapons as well. For Ness, he equipped himself with six Iron Bombs and six Thunder Bombs, his normal pendants and badges, as well as an iron baseball bat, his Horn of Life, and his two bags of Magic Truffles. He also made sure to take the scroll that showed them the combination for opening the gateway to the Faerie World, and the vial of holy water for freeing any children that were enthralled by the Faeries. Finally, Paula took up her arms, five Thunder Bombs and Iron Bombs, her two bags of Magic Truffles, Sound Stone, Non-Stick Fry Pan, and Secret Herb. She also made sure to take her vial of holy water with her as well. Once they were all equipped, they made their way back into the cockpit.

Inside the cockpit, the group looked out the front window and saw the image of Stonehenge fast approaching. They stared at it in wonder for a second before taking their stations. Jeff then called out a warning. "Be alert people, looks like they've got a presence down there."

Sure enough, several Starmen, along with many more Mooks, and even some Elves and Faeries were standing near the monument. Jeff immediately switched weapons control to his station and he switched to the rocket pods. Since rockets were dumb-fired, he had to line up the sights of the rockets with the concentrations of enemy soldiers. Giygas began the battle by jamming the Starmen's abilities to raise any shields or counter shields. After that was accomplished, he nodded towards Jeff. Jeff then opened fire and the rocket pods disgorged their rockets. A dozen rockets streaked towards their targets near Stonehenge. Being unable to raise their shields, the Starmen mounted the only defense they could. They fired green beams of energy at the oncoming rockets, hoping to take a few of them down. They were less accurate than Imperial stormtroopers from Star Wars, though, and could not hit a single rocket, not even when they were at point blank range and about to blow them to pieces. Sure enough, the rockets struck among the Starmen and did, indeed, blow them to pieces. The other groups of Starmen and other aliens fared no better and quickly met the same fate. Once the area was cleared, Jeff descended the Sky Runner II and hid it behind a series of stones outside the monument. It did not take long for the craft to touch down and power down in order to avoid detection by any passing UFOs or other enemies that might be allied with the PSI Aliens. Once the Sky Runner II had landed, the boarding ramp lowered and the five heroes emerged from the craft.

Giygas extended his psychic senses around the area in order to spot any hiding Starmen or other PSI Alien forces. After a few seconds, he made his report. "There are over two dozen enemies still present in the area, mostly consisting of Starmen, Greater Mooks, and normal Faeries. Stonehenge has magical properties now, so the powers of the Faeries are enhanced while they are in the vicinity of Stonehenge. That said, they are still vulnerable to iron and electricity, so don't hold back against them."

"Right," the others replied in unison. The group then surged towards Stonehenge. The plan was relatively simple. Ness would break the seals in order to unlock the gateway to the Faerie World while the others would cover him. Paula would be his escort since she had the ability to raise a psychic shield over Ness and protect him from the attacks of the Starmen and Mooks.

Upon entering the Stonehenge monument, two Starmen immediately emerged from their cover and fired streams of PSI Fire at the heroes. Giygas decided to take care of these annoyances by responding with his own stream of PSI Fire. A cone of psychic fire erupted from his hand and expanded as it approached the two Starmen. The Starmen were quickly engulfed by the flames and set ablaze. The Starmen flailed around, seemingly in agony, as they burned. Eventually, they fell to the ground where they ceased to move, there to remain until the flames reduced them to ashes. By this time, Ness was already on his second clockwise lap around the monument, with Paula doing her best to keep up with him. Jeff remained stationed a ways away from the monument so he could pick off any enemies from range, since he was not as fast as the psychics, or at least divert their attention away from Ness and Paula. Poo, meanwhile, quickly darted from stone to stone in order to scan for any potential attackers. So far, only a single Faerie came out to challenge him. The fight lasted only a couple of seconds as Poo intercepted the Faerie's sword swipe with his own sword and responded first with a side kick to the Faerie's chest and then a stab to the unfortunate being's heart. Poo's sword pierced the Faerie's heart and the Faerie collapsed onto the ground, leaking bluish gas. Soon, Poo felt a power begin to emerge from one of the stones in Stonehenge. He looked over and saw one of he massive stones glowing, and Ness returning to the perimeter to run counterclockwise so he could activate break the second seal.

Jeff looked out from on a hill and saw a Faerie trying to zero in on Ness and Paula. Jeff immediately targeted the Faerie, lining up the site of his Gaia Beam pistol on the Faerie and firing. The scarlet bolt of energy burned a hole inside the Faerie's skull and felled the creature, killing him before he could attack Ness. Ness soon poured his energy into a hole on the outer perimeter of Stonehenge. Now, he ran clockwise towards one of the stones on the other side of the monument. He drew out his iron bat and struck the stone, pouring some of his psychic energy into the bat. The stone emitted a glow and the third seal was broken. He ran counterclockwise around the perimeter of the monument once more, circumnavigating the monument and checked the diagram on his scroll to see which stone he should strike, all the while Poo and Paula were fending off attacks from several Cute Li'l UFOs and a Starman Super. He soon found the correct stone on the inner ring and he struck it, breaking the fourth seal. All the while, metallic debris from the downed UFOs littered the monument. Ness then ran clockwise and found a hole that had once contained a stone. He pushed a blast of psychic energy into the hole, causing a fountain of scarlet psychic energy to rocket into the sky. The fifth seal was broken. He then ran counterclockwise once more around the perimeter, circumnavigating the monument once more while the others covered him. He then soon came to the next stone diagramed on the map and struck it, causing it to glow. The sixth seal was now broken. Jeff looked into the center of the monument and saw a pulsing green sphere of energy beginning to form. Inside the sphere, he thought he could see figures moving, as if he were looking into the window of a person's house. This did not go unnoticed by the others in the group. Ness then moved clockwise once more and found the next hole on the map that was the next seal. He approached the hole and poured his psychic energy into the hole. Again, a geyser of scarlet psychic energy lit up the landscape, erupting into the sky. The seventh seal was broken. Ness then circumnavigated the monument once more and then searched for the next stone that represented the eighth seal. He found the stone on the inside ring and struck it with his iron bat, adding his own energy to the bat. The stone glowed as the eighth seal was broken. Ness then moved clockwise once again and went back to the outside ring. He soon found the stone that he was searching for and he struck it. The stone glowed a deep blue and the ninth seal was broken.

Ness then retreated from the monument and joined his friends, who regrouped away from the monument. The stones glowed more brightly and the geysers of psychic energy increased in luminosity and soon, streams of energy swirled around the entirety of Stonehenge. The streams of energy soon converged on the large sphere of energy that had appeared in the center of the monument. The streams of energy collided and a bright window into another world opened. The path to the Faerie World had appeared. Ness and the others approached slowly and cautiously. Steeling themselves for the journey ahead, the group drew their weapons and marched forward towards the window. As they approached, they could see the forms of various pixies, trolls, and even regular Faeries inside the window.

"Be careful once you enter the Faerie World," Giygas warned them. "The Faeries can tip their arrows with magic, poison, and various biological agents that can cause fatal infections. The weapons of the pixies and sprites are especially dangerous in that regard."

"Got it," the teens responded as they marched forward. As they neared the window, they could see a large, beautiful landscape directly in front of them. It was covered with Faeries, and more were joining the party. They knew at that moment that the battle at the entrance to the Faerie World would be one of the most intense battles they had ever fought. Taking a deep breath, the quintet marched through the dimensional doorway and into the Faerie World. Inside the Faerie World, the entire landscape was covered with Faeries of all kinds; pixies, sprites, trolls, goblins, "regular" Faeries, elves, and other creatures that were either too beautiful for words, or too hideous to describe. Ness immediately raised a Shield Omega over the entire party just as each and every Faerie that was armed with a bow and arrow fired his or her bows, and unleashed sheets of arrows at the party.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14:

The sheets of arrows and needles that rained down towards the heroes would have blotted out the sun if there had been any sunlight in the Faerie World. Instead, this area of the Faerie World had a light that shined all around them, but with no clear source. The arrows fell onto the heroes and those that hit their mark struck Ness's counter shield and rebounded off of the shield back at the various Faeries. Several lines of pixies, small Faeries standing about a foot or two high that had wings and were hovering close to the heroes, were hit by their own arrows and immediately fell to the ground, miniature arrows protruding from their bodies. Bluish gases emerged from their bodies like blood, dispersing as soon as they met the air. But the assault was just beginning. Trolls soon came storming through the ranks of pixies and charged into the ranks of the heroes, their clubs held high. The trolls were massive creatures that were more reminiscent of the trolls that the teens had heard of in stories. They stood at around nine feet tall, were burly and heavily muscled. They had tannish skin, but in an unnatural tone and texture. They also had long hair and wielded massive clubs that looked to be made of wood.

Ness pushed more energy into his shield as a dozen trolls stormed towards the party. He knew that the strength of the trolls would test his shield and their magic would likely push it to the limit. Still, he held his hand up, indicating that the others should not launch any attacks on the trolls. He did not want them to waste any psychic energy, not yet. Ness waited as the trolls approached. Their seemingly blind charge towards the party indicated that the trolls were either not very smart and chose to ignore the counter shield, feeling that their might would be able to collapse it and not cause their attacks to be reflected back at them, or that they simply were willing to take the punishment that their reflected attacks would inflict on them. The trolls raised their clubs as they approached and issued an immense roar. They then brought their clubs down upon the party members. Their clubs, which would have bludgeoned any normal humans with a single hit, shattering their heads, struck the counter shield and were reflected back at the trolls. The recoil from the impact caused the trolls' own clubs to strike them in the head. The trolls then fell over onto the ground either unconscious or dead, black blood issuing from the cuts on their heads and from their noses and mouths. Giygas made their eventual fates certain with a series of green energy blasts that disintegrated the fallen trolls. Even with the fall of several dozen pixies and trolls, though, countless imps, pixies, trolls, Hostile Elder Oaks, an enemy that the teens had not expected to see in the Faerie World, and Faeries still surged towards the heroes, and Ness knew that his shield would not hold out forever. Giygas and Poo decided that it was time to take care of things.

Ness, Paula, and Jeff retreated behind the two psychics and waited as dozens of green and blue orbs of light formed around the two psychics, the prelude to PSI Starstorm Omega. Despite the orbs of energy forming around the psychics, the Faeries still approached, either oblivious towards the psychic assault that they were about to suffer, or confident in their ability to survive the assault long enough for them to close in on the teens and Giygas and attack. Giygas and Poo's eyes glowed as they targeted the horde of onrushing foes. The two then extended their arms towards the oncoming host and dozens of orbs rushed towards the horde. The stars from the Starstorm Omega attack vaporized line after line of pixies, plowed through Hostile Elder Oaks, snapping their trunks in half, and blowing apart trolls on impact, and continuing through towards the rest of the army. Entire ranks of enemies were being felled by Giygas and Poo's attacks, and that was before the stars struck the ground and exploded among more of the enemy. Once the stars eventually did strike the ground, they gouged craters several meters in diameter before they exploded; producing craters dozens of meters across and over a dozen meters deep. Entire platoons of Faeries, trolls and other creatures were instantly annihilated by the onslaught of energy unleashed by Giygas and Poo. Still, despite more than half of the enemy army having been felled by the attacks, the Faeries, trolls, goblins, pixies, and others still surged through the onslaught. Now it was time for Ness and the others to act.

Paula now took the stage, standing in front of the others. Her eyes began to glow as she extended her arms forward. Two spheres of water began to form in front of her hands. The spheres grew until they were the size of beach ball. Upon reaching the size of beach balls, she slammed the two spheres together. Paula then cried out in a loud voice, "PSI Torrent Omega!"

The Faeries recoiled at the sound of Paula's cry, but they would soon realize that the real horror would come from her attack, for Paula then unleashed a tremendous tidal wave of water straight toward the oncoming Faeries. The Faeries froze for a second, and that would spell their doom. They only began to run as the tidal wave of psychic water came crashing down upon them. The pixies, human-like Faeries, and goblins were instantly crushed by Paula's psychic tidal wave. The trolls managed to stand firm for a microsecond before being washed away by the torrent of water. The bodies of the Faeries were caught in the rush of water and pushed along the path of the stream until the water dissipated at almost two hundred yards away. Once the waters receded, the field was littered with the crushed and mangled bodies of Faerie, troll, goblin, and pixie alike. Only a few Hostile Elder Oaks remained, and their survival was short-lived as Giygas fired a volley of green energy blasts, reducing the mobile trees to woodchips.

Once the battle was over, the teens, minus Paula, who remained behind with Giygas, marched forward along a brick road that lie before them, doing their best to ignore the Faerie bodies that littered the landscape and parts of the path. However, Giygas called up to them, yelling, "Wait."

The others looked back at him. "What is it?" Poo asked.

"The brick road leads to the Faerie palace."

"Isn't that the location of the Sanctuary?" Poo asked. "I am sensing an incredible amount of energy emanating from the end of the road."

"No," Giygas replied, shaking his head as he approached. "The magic of the Faerie World can cloud your senses. The Sanctuary is off the beaten path."

"He's right," Paula confirmed. "I can clearly sense a strong telepathic presence directly left of the path. It's the true location of the next Sanctuary."

"How do you know this?" Jeff asked.

She huddled in close to the other teens before whispering her reply to Jeff, and letting Poo in on what she had. "When I was in Scaraba, a man gave me a ribbon he called an 'Angel Ribbon'. It was a blessed ribbon and it is what is allowing me to sense the true Sanctuary location. It also helps increase my durability in a fight."

"Then let's get going," Poo said. "We have to reach that Sanctuary soon."

"Hold on for a moment," Giygas cautioned. "There's a current lull here. We can use this to our advantage to take stock of the situation and plan our journey."

"The plan is simple, make a beeline for the Sanctuary," Ness blurted out.

"Yes," Giygas nodded. "But don't think that the Faeries are going to make it easy for us to find the Sanctuary. Our sense of direction is going to be thrown the closer we get to the Sanctuary. The Guardians are, after all, the current king and queen of the Faerie World, and they usurped the throne from Oberon and Titania through direct combat as well as by the use of treachery and making an alliance with my people. They'll be using their full might to confuse our senses and use their strongest soldiers to impede our path. They'll also use…other soldiers as well."

"Changelinged children," Paula stated coldly.

"Something like that," Giygas replied. "Though these children were not replaced. The Fool, the identity of the king, and the new Faerie Queen do not always replace the children they abduct, and when they do so, it is often apparent not long after the child is replaced since the Changelings are often far more, how can I say this…perverted than the children they replace."

"Perverted in what way?" Jeff asked.

"Normally, when they take a child, the new crop of Faeries will take a good child who is kind, loving, and pure of heart. The replacement 'child' will then be cruel, sadistic, often maiming or killing animals, or hurting friends or family members. They will also show signs of, again, how can I put this, more perverted physical pursuits. They'll, ahem, crush on other children of the opposite sex, or even the same sex, or on adults, only it won't simply be a crush, if you know what I mean."

Jeff immediately got the gist of what Giygas was telling him.

"Have any of the children that were kidnapped recently been changelinged?" Ness asked.

"Not that I know of," Giygas answered. "But my last trip through here was over a year ago, when I was setting up the Sanctuaries. Things may have changed since then."

"Were there any kidnapped children here when you were here last?" Poo asked.

This time, Giygas nodded. "Yes, there were four children here. Two of them were siblings, two boys and two girls. The oldest of them was ten, with the youngest being six. Two of them were twins. The twins were eight. All four of them were psychic." This statement surprised the rest of the group. "My people told them about the children and how to kidnap them. We used this as an opportunity to study psychic powers in human children. We were especially interested in the ten year old since Ness and Paula were only ten during the first war. Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be for you, we learned very little since the magic of the Faerie World changed them and they were soon physically perverted and distorted. They would be unrecognizable right now to look at."

Ness and Paula clutched their vials of holy water. They had a feeling that even their psychic powers might not be enough to heal the children and that only the holy water and the blessing would be sufficient. The group soon proceeded to move forward when a creature of a type that they had never seen before approached. It had a small body, no larger than Ness's, but with too long arms, and too long legs, all of which seemed to have too many joints. The creature was also dressed only in the remains of a pair of blue shorts. It scampered on all fours towards the heroes much like an ape. When it was only a few yards away, it stopped. The teens immediately hunkered down and assumed a defensive stance, each of them drawing their weapons. Lightning was already crackling in Paula and Poo's hands. Paula quickly activated her telepathic senses to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of this alien creature. The creature swung its head, back and forth, briefly gazing at each and every one of the heroes. However, when its eyes met Paula, a grin shown on its face as it leered at the beautiful girl. The group could see the unnatural and perverted desires in its eyes as it seemed to be magnetically attracted to the girl. It was then that Paula's eyes flashed in shock. She had determined that the creature had the normal strengths and weaknesses that most Faeries possessed, but she also sensed something else. Beyond the perverse desires on the surface of the creature's mind, and his intent to bring harm to the children, she could sense another soul inside the creature. That mind and soul was crying out with all of its, no _his_, might. _My gosh, no_, Paula thought. _He's one of the children that was kidnapped by the Faeries_! The realization hit her like a tank. Ness and Poo were already beginning to charge towards the creature when Paula called out frantically in an effort to avert a disaster, "Wait! Don't use deadly force on him! That's one of the children!"

Paula's cries were instantly heard by the teens and they stopped in their tracks and waited for further instructions and plans. However, the creature decided their next course of action for them as he initiated the attack. The creature gave a loud perverted hoot halfway between a monkey's cry and the call a boy or grown man would give a beautiful girl, all perverted. It then leapt at Poo, baring its teeth and fangs. It was quite confident in its ability to kill the teen. Poo then reached out and caught the creature in his arms as if it were nothing more than an empty suitcase and casually tossed the creature aside. The creature tried to attack again, but Ness arrived before it could leap again and he grabbed the creature by the throat and, using his psychically enhanced strength, slammed the creature into the ground. Holding onto the creature's throat, Ness drew out the vial of holy water and popped the cork. He then sprinkled some of it onto the creature. The creature gave an inhuman roar of pain that would have shocked and terrified any normal that had heard it. Giygas recoiled at the horrible sound, and even Jeff was a little unnerved, though that was mostly due to the loudness of the cry. It did not affect Ness, however, and both Paula and Poo seemed to be fine as well. Ness then said in a low, calm voice, "By the power of Our Lord, you are free!"

Immediately, the creature began to make a series of roars as Ness released it and it began to flail around as if it had been set on fire. An unnatural green flame surrounded the creature and the inhumanly dark skin burned off of the creature, revealing the brighter skin tone underneath. Eventually, the unnatural skin and hair burned away completely. Even the unnatural cry began to give way to the cry of a child, which gradually changed into a cheer. After the transformation was completed, no longer did the image of an inhumanly grotesque creature stand before them, but the form of a human boy no older than ten.

The human boy looked over at the four teens and asked, "Is the nightmare over? Am I free?"

Ness and Paula nodded. Still, both Paula and Poo scanned the boy to ensure that he was completely free of Faerie control, and to make sure that he was not still under the influence of any other outside forces. Indeed, he was free. Just then, though, they sensed a creature coming up from behind the boy. It was another Faerie. It looked to be male, but it also appeared to be young, no older than fourteen years old or so. Paula and Poo were also quick to sense that this Faerie looked to be nothing more than a ghost. However, the teens knew what the Faerie was trying to do. It was trying to posses the boy. Just as it was about to try to posses the boy, though, a woman appeared between the boy and the Faerie ghost. The Faerie ghost's eyes widened in fear at the sight of the woman. The woman was wearing a regal pink dress and had blond hair and blue eyes, though she wore no crown. Ness instantly recognized the woman as Maria, George's wife and the ancestor of Ninten. Standing besides Maria was a man, the same man that had appeared next to her when he had encountered Giygas in Ellay. The man looked to be young, only in his mid twenties, but he looked to be powerfully built, though that could have also been due to the armor that he was wearing. The man was also inhumanly handsome, but not in any sexual context. He was truly pure. There was a benevolence about him, and yet everyone present could also sense that he was incomprehensibly strong. The Faerie ghost's eyes shifted to the man and they then widened in absolute horror at the sight of the man. The man said one word, which, while spoken at a normal tone of voice, was like a nuclear explosion for all who heard it. "Leave." He then spread two wings that were very reminiscent of the wings of a Bald Eagle.

The Faerie ghost immediately shrank away under the gaze of the man and disappeared, issuing one last cry of horror as it fled from the man. The boy who had recently been freed from possession did not know whether to be comforted by the angel or terrified beyond comprehension. He felt both terror and relief at the same time. Maria then went over to the boy and calmed him down saying, "Do not be afraid. It is over now."

"We'll protect you, if you wish," the angel said to the boy in a calm, business-like voice that brought comfort to the terrified boy. The boy nodded, indicating that he did not want the angel or Maria to leave.

After checking on the boy, the group then made ready to move on, but before they did, the angel called out to them, telling them, "There are seven more children that were taken by the Faeries and need to be rescued. Three of them are at the Faerie Palace at the end of the brick road. The road is winding, but it will lead you to the palace. If you don't divert from the road, you will be fine. The remaining four children are stationed close to the Sanctuary. Not all of the children have been turned, but some have."

"How will we know which Faeries are real Faeries and which are children that have been turned?" Jeff asked. He was wondering this because he knew that the group would likely be splitting up for this journey. It was Maria who gave the answer.

"Use your scanner," she said. "It will be able to identify the humans, even if they have been transformed into Faerie creatures on the outside. The souls of humans and the energy that emanates from them cannot be changed so easily."

"Jeff and I will rescue the children at the Faerie Palace," Ness said, volunteering Jeff for the assignment. Jeff was not crazy about the idea of going alone with Ness to the Faerie palace, but he would be needed, and he knew that the other three would need to go to the Sanctuary to claim the Sanctuary and since only he and Ness did not have any Sound Stones, they were the only ones that could be free to go and save the children at the palace. He quickly got the impression that this was the Faerie's plan all along, to divide the heroes so that they would be easier to conquer. Glancing over at Giygas, he knew that the PSI Alien was thinking along the same lines.

"Are you confident that you can save the children in the palace by yourselves?" he asked both Ness and Jeff.

Ness nodded. Jeff, however, was not quite as confident as Ness, which Giygas sensed immediately. Nevertheless, though, he still nodded for Giygas. It was then that the angel spoke to Jeff and Ness. "Do not feel as if you are locked into this choice. Your suspicions regarding the placement of the kidnapped children are correct. And The Fool and his new Faerie Queen Consort are quite powerful and I am not permitted to fight alongside you directly. I may only remain here to serve as a focus for your teleportation abilities and as a guard for the kidnapped children. The Faeries will have the most powerful of their servants guarding the children at the palace. This is an attempt to kill you. Be prepared for the worst," the angel warned.

"Are you trying to persuade us or dissuade us from going?" Jeff asked.

"I am merely giving you the information that you need to make the choice wisely. This will be the toughest Sanctuary you have faced yet, and if you split your forces, that will make the Sanctuary battle even tougher."

Ness and Jeff looked at each other and then nodded in agreement. Their decision had been made. They would go to rescue the children at the Faerie palace. They then turned to the others and said, "We're still going to rescue the children at the palace. Do you wish to join us or dissuade us from doing so?"

The others shook their heads. "We should be okay against The Fool and his Queen Consort," Paula told Ness. "You go and get those kids. This way, we will be able to keep the Faeires off balance if they have to go after two parties. If anything, they'll divert forces to us so that will give you a clearer path to save the other kids." The last sentence was given with a smile. Ness had not considered that possibility. Ness and Jeff then nodded and headed down the brick road, being careful to focus their attention on the road itself. They knew that they would need to focus on the road like they had never focused before, since they would no longer have the sight of Paula and Giygas to serve them. Ness first got out his vial of holy water and blessed himself making the sign of the cross on his forehead, saying, "Dear God, please give me the sight to see what is true and what is false." It was the best that Ness could come up with on the spot. He prayed that his prayer would be sufficient.

Jeff then reached for Ness's vial and asked, "Hey, could I have some as well?"

Ness nodded and handed him the vial of holy water. Jeff then blessed himself saying this prayer, "Almighty God. Please grant me the sight to distinguish between reality and illusion in this world of illusions and magic." Jeff then handed Ness the vial of holy water. He then drew out his lightning gun and activated the weapon. The lightning gun, while relatively powerful also drained its power packs at an extreme rate and was no stronger than the Gaia Beam pistol, thus Jeff had considered it impractical for use during the previous parts of his adventure. Against the Faeries, though, Jeff knew that it would be death, so the had decided to remove the weapon from storage and use it for the journey through the Faerie World. Still, he also kept his Gaia Beam pistol as backup. He also drew out his scanner from his pocket. The scanner was an invention by his father that had been built before his first adventure with Ness. He had eventually managed to build one of his own that was identical to his father's. With his scanner, he could easily identify any lifeform that he came across. The Faeries had not been programmed into the computer, so they would come up as unknown lifeforms. However, the scanner's computer could easily identify human life signs. Ness immediately drew out his iron bat and one of his Iron Bombs and held it in his left hand. He hoped that he would not have to use one for a while, but he had a feeling that there would be Faeries along the road trying to impede his progress. He then took one more look back at Paula, Poo, Giygas, and Maria and the angel before turning to travel down the brick road, and towards the palace.

Back with the rest of the party, Paula and Poo exchanged one glance and nodded. They knew what needed to be done and they were ready to tackle the next Sanctuary. They extended their psychic senses and they proceeded to head left of the brick road and straight to the Sanctuary.

As the human duo headed off, Giygas remained behind and looked over to Maria and the angel. When the humans were out of earshot, Maria told her adoptive son, "It's not too late, Giygas. You can still choose a different path."

"No I can't," he responded.

"Why can't you?" Maria asked. "Don't you see that if you follow the path you've laid out for yourself, you could die, if not physically than spiritually?"

"And if I follow the path you want me to, Mother, I'm certain to die."

"That's not guaranteed," the angel responded harshly. "There are ways you could avert your death, yet still destroy the darkness at the center of your fleet. You can break the link, Giygas, but only _you_ can break the link."

"No I can't, Michael," Giygas replied. "You should know that more than anyone."

"I know that you haven't even tried," Michael countered. "All it takes is a prayer and the will. The tools are there. You already have access to them. God will listen to you. The same way that Ness and Jeff can see through the Faeries's illusions can break the link between you and the evil."

"I have made my choice. Do not bother me anymore," Giygas told them harshly. A tear fell from Maria's eye as Giygas followed after Paula and Poo. Maria then looked up to Heaven and prayed fervently for Giygas's soul, and that Ness and the others could help him before the time came. Michael put his hand on Maria's shoulders.

"It is his choice, now," he told her. "He has the tools needed to break the link. All he needs to do is have the will."

"But what if he can't, or won't," Maria asked. "He's my son. I don't want him to die. And I don't want him to become evil and destroy his soul."

"That will be his choice," Michael answered. "Only he can break the link. Only he can determine his own fate. All we can do is guide him…and help him if he asks for it."

Maria then looked down the path that Giygas had taken and prayed all the more fervently for the soul of her son. All the while, the boy glanced over at the two, perplexed as to what their discussion was all about. Still, one of his gifts was a photographic memory, something that Michael knew very well, and knew would come into play when Ness and Jeff returned.

Ness and Jeff closely followed the brick road, which seemed to go on for an eternity. Still, in the twenty minutes that they had been traveling, they had yet to encounter a single Faerie or other denizen of the Faerie World. Ness did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, though. It may have been that most of the Faerie army that was loyal to The Fool had assembled to try to stop the party at the entrance to the Faerie World. On the other hand, the absence of Faeries here could mean that the Faerie army had simply gone after Paula and the others and set up fortifications around the Sanctuary, since it was far away from the main palace. That would mean that Paula, Poo, and Giygas would be on their own facing down hordes of enemy soldiers.

Speaking of enemy soldiers, Ness and Jeff took two steps forward and were then met by two Starmen that looked to be wearing dark purple uniforms, surrounded by what looked to be a pinkish field of energy that appeared right in front of them. The duo immediately recognized the newcomers as being Ghosts of Starmen. These enemies, while they did not have any psychic shielding, that they knew of, did have powerful psychic attacks, such as PSI Starstorm Alpha and Starstorm Omega. The two humans witnessed several green orbs of energy form around the Ghosts of Starmen and they immediately knew what was coming. Jeff figured that the Iron Bombs would be of little use against the ghosts. He was not so sure about the Thunder Bombs, however. Still, Ness made the decision for him as he quickly powered a ball of PSI Rockin as the Starmen finished powering their Starstorm attacks. Ness had only managed to raise his Rockin to its Gamma level when the Starmen launched their stars towards the party. Ness and Jeff fled the attack as Ness turned and fired his ball of Rockin at the two Starmen. The scarlet ball of psychic energy managed to plow through the few stars that collided with it as it streaked towards the Ghosts of Starmen. Ness prayed that the Starmen would not focus their attacks on the ball of Rockin and push it back at the two of them. Jeff soon added his own fire to the mix, drawing out his Hungry HP Sucker and his Gaia Beam pistol. Scarlet pulses and green swirling beams of energy erupted from the guns and struck the Ghost of Starman on the left. The Ghost of Starman did not seem to be heavily affected by the Gaia Beam pistol, but he was affected by the blasts of the Hungry HP Sucker. The Hungry HP Sucker served a dual purpose of not only inflicting damage to the Ghost of Starman, but also returning health to Jeff, who was suddenly in great need of it since several of the stars from the Starmen's Starstorm had struck close to Jeff, with one of them striking him directly. Only the health that the Hungry HP Sucker had managed to steal from one of the Ghosts of Starman had managed to keep Jeff alive. Ness also had also sustained a direct hit from one of the stars, but his own psychic abilities allowed him to limit the damage inflicted by the attack and keep him in the fight. However, that attack was all the Ghost of Starmen would be able to accomplish, since Ness's ball of PSI Rockin Gamma had reached the duo of Starmen and detonated, engulfing them in a red sphere of energy. After a few seconds, the sphere of energy dissipated, revealing that one of the Ghosts of Starman was still alive, while the second one had been disintegrated. However, the surviving ghost's body seemed to be having difficulty maintaining its integrity, since it was flickering. Ness soon dealt with the final Ghost of Starman by using another blast of PSI Rockin, this time at its Beta level. Ness stretched out his hands and unleashed the ball of Rockin at the Ghost of Starman. The ball of Rockin struck the ghost and detonated, engulfing the entity in a scarlet sphere. By the time the sphere had dissipated, the ghost had vanished. With the battle having concluded, the Ness used his Lifeup Omega to restore himself and Jeff to full health before the two continued on their way.

After another half hour of walking, the group soon came upon a stone tower off to the side of the road. Remembering the advice from Michael, the group followed the road and ignored the tower. As the two passed, eyes from several windows in the tower followed their movements. These were not hostile eyes, merely curious. They watched as the two human boys followed the road until they left the Faerie's sight. The Faerie then issued a silent prayer that these humans were the saviors that had come to take down The Fool and his consort and restore the throne of Oberon and Titania.

Not long after they passed the tower, the road began to twist and wind, seemingly leading the two nowhere. Still, despite the confusing twists, turns, and even forks that the path tried to throw at the two, they continued on, both of them using their own insight to find the correct path when they came to a fork. One thing that surprised them, though, was that during this whole trek, besides the two Ghosts of Starmen that they had encountered, they had not found one single enemy present. There had been several groups of Faeries off to the side of the road singing, dancing, and making merry. However, none of those groups seemed to have hostile intentions, and seemed to ignore Ness and Jeff as they journeyed past.

Eventually, the road straightened out once more. Ness heard the sound of running water looked to the side and he saw a stream running alongside the road. The stream looked pretty deep and it seemed as if it could house several man-sized creatures. Ness half expected to see a merman or a mermaid leap out of the water and initiate an attack against him and Jeff. Straight ahead, they saw several platoons of Faeries of all sorts making their way towards them. The Faeries were also joined by several Hostile Elder Oaks. Ness glanced off to the side river and saw several old, yet familiar, enemies jump out of the river. They were Manly Fish and Manly Fish's Brothers. Even Jeff could feel the hostility emanating from the groups of enemies that were approaching. Ness turned to Jeff and said, "You take the Manly Fish and Manly Fish's Brothers. I'll take on the main force. First, though, check to make sure there aren't any human life signs."

Jeff quickly drew out his scanner and took quick scans of the entire host that was approaching. Seeing no human life signs register on the scanner, he told Ness, "You're good to go. There aren't any human life signs among them."

Ness grinned as he concentrated on the incoming enemy army. Before engaging the enemy, he raised a Shield Omega over himself and Jeff in order to protect them from the magical attacks of the enemy. However, both humans were keenly aware of Many Fish's Brother's ability to use PSI Freeze. Jeff was relying on Ness finishing off the opposing enemy forces quickly and/or his own Star Pendant to keep the PSI Freeze of the Manly Fish's Brothers from killing him or freezing him solid. Still, the Shield Omega would protect Jeff from all non-psychic attacks, which would be instrumental in helping him hold out against the Faerie forces that were arrayed against them. Ness then focused on the main force that was fast approaching. Ness held out his right hand and a scarlet ball of psychic energy formed in front of it. The ball of energy grew until it was the size of a beach ball. It then continued to grow until it was the size of a small boulder. While Ness had been charging his Rockin attack, the Faerie forces let fly with volley after volley of arrows, spears, and lances. The stream of arrows fell to the ground and onto the heroes like rain from a thunderstorm. Ness's Shield Omega, however, fully protected him and Jeff from the withering assault. Many arrows missed their mark, merely glancing off the stones on the road, or sticking in the soft ground on the side of the road. Others inadvertently struck some of the Manly Fish and Many Fish's Brothers that had strayed close to Jeff and felled them, arrows protruding from their body. Those that found their mark, however, merely bounced off of Ness and Jeff's counter shield and were reflected back at the Faerie forces. The poisoned miniature pixie arrows that were reflected struck numerous pixies and felled them almost instantaneously, the flying miniature Faeries falling from the sky and to the ground only to be trampled by the larger trolls, goblins, and Faeries. The pixies, due to their small size, and the small size of their arrows, bore the brunt of the casualties since more of their arrows struck Ness and Jeff than did the other Faeries' weapons. However, it would not matter much, for Ness had powered his attack to its full strength. Once it was completed, he cried out in a loud voice, "PSI Rockin Omega!"

The massive boulder of scarlet psychic energy leapt from his hand and streaked towards the oncoming Faerie army at blinding speed. The Faeries could scarcely react before the ball fell among them and exploded like a nuclear bomb. The massive blast created a globe of scarlet psychic energy that gouged a massive crater into the ground, engulfing the entire Faerie army. Wind and debris flashed against Ness and Jeff's counter shield as pieces of dirt and cracked earth struck the shield at a velocity that would have been sufficient to cause the two teens harm. After a few seconds, the globe dissipated, leaving only a three hundred meter wide crater that was about a hundred meters deep. There was no trace of any Faerie remaining. All that remained was a massive cloud of dust. Ness then turned to assist Jeff.

During the brief battle that Ness had against the Faerie force, Jeff engaged in his own battle against some more familiar foes. While the Manly Fish and Manly Fish's Brothers were merely humanoid fish with one head, two arms, and two legs armed with spears, the Manly Fish's Brothers also had the ability to utilize PSI attacks. In addition to PSI Freeze Beta, it could use PSI Healing Omega, Paralysis Alpha, and Hypnosis Alpha. Ness and Jeff's Star Pendant and Goddess Band would protect them from the status effecting attacks. Still, the PSI Freeze Beta would be difficult to deal with, especially for Jeff. Jeff instantly identified the Manly Fish's Brothers among the dozen or so Manly Fish that were attacking and he targeted them with both his Gaia Beam pistol and his lightning gun. Jeff pulled the trigger on one of the Manly Fish's Brothers and a scarlet energy pulse and stream of lightning erupted from the barrels of the guns. The twin attacks struck the Manly Fish's Brother and the scarlet energy pulse drilled a hole into the heart of the Manly Fish's Brother, while the lightning stream burned a hole through the fish's chest area and caused electricity to arc all over its body. The fish fell over onto the ground, dead. Jeff then found the next of the three remaining Manly Fish's Brothers and fired another volley of attacks. Again, the second of the Manly Fish's Brothers fell. All the while, the regular Manly Fish simply rushed towards Jeff and thrust their spears towards him. However, his counter shield protected him from their attacks and in return, merely caused them to thrust the handles of their spears into their own stomachs. Their countered attacks were not enough to kill the fish, but they did cause them to keel over in pain while Jeff engaged the real threats.

As for the Manly Fish's Brothers, they decided to forgo resurrecting their cohorts and instead went to attack Ness and Jeff directly with PSI Freeze Beta. Snowflakes of psychic energy appeared in front of the spears of the fish and they thrust their spears forward, propelling the attacks towards Jeff. Jeff dodged the first attack and responded with a dual blast from his Gaia Beam pistol and his lightning gun, felling the Manly Fish's Brother. The second PSI Freeze blast, however, managed to strike, and froze Jeff solid, encasing him in a cube of ice. The Manly Fish and the remaining Manly Fish's Brother went up to Jeff to shatter him when an unseen force suddenly flung them away. A ball of energy rocketed towards the Manly Fish's Brother, hit him and engulfed him in a red field of psychic energy. The Manly Fish were not so manly when they realized that Ness had now come to assist Jeff. Ness used PSI Healing Omega to cure Jeff of his being frozen solid. Jeff immediately defrosted and took aim at the remaining enemies. Now, he holstered his Gaia Beam pistol and drew out a Thunder Bomb, thinking that now was as good a time as any to test these weapons. He grabbed one of the spherical bombs and pushed its activation stud. He then tossed the bomb into the highest concentration Manly Fish. The bomb left his hand and arced towards the fish. The fish had no idea what the weapon was, so they simply stood there like idiots. Their idiocy cost them their lives as the bomb detonated and a field of electricity was unleashed. The field of electricity extended ten meters in diameter. All of the Manly Fish in the field of the bomb's detonation were electrocuted by the attack. The fish uttered cries of pain as the electricity arced all across their bodies, creating massive burn marks on their bodies. The fish then fell over onto the ground, dead.

Ness and Jeff then turned to the remaining Manly Fish and this time it was Ness's turn to take out a Thunder Bomb. He drew out the Thunder Bomb and activated it. He then tossed it over to the remaining Manly Fish. These Manly Fish were a lot smarter than the last batch, though that was likely due to seeing the effects of the first bomb. The fish turned tail and ran at the sight of the bomb. Unfortunately, though, they were not fast enough. The bomb bounced in front of them and they soon skidded to a halt, trying to dive away into the water. However, it was too little, too late. The bomb detonated and caught all of the fish in the field of detonation. Ness used Lifeup Beta on Jeff to restore him to full health as he and Jeff walked away from the writhing fish. By the time the fish had fallen to the ground and finished writhing, the humans were out of sight.

Continuing on their journey, Ness and Jeff looked off into the distance and saw a magnificent palace coming into view in front of them. Both of them could easily tell that it was the Faerie palace. Ness immediately got out a couple of Magic Truffles and devoured them. As he ate the truffles, he felt his psychic energy being replenished. Once his psychic energy was fully restored, he felt ready to continue towards the Faerie Palace.

As the two continued to make their way towards the palace, Jeff whipped out his scanner once more and it beeped as he pointed it towards the palace. "I'm definitely getting human life readings in that palace," Jeff announced. They were on the right track.

"How many?" Ness asked.

"Three," came the response. That was all they needed to know. With that, the group continued towards the palace.

It only took the two human children a few minutes to arrive at the palace. The surrounding areas seemed to be surreal. There were guard towers all around the palace and the teens could sense the presence of numerous Faeries, though the creatures did not make any hostile gestures towards them. If anything, there was an air of hope in the palace garden upon the arrival of Ness and Jeff. They let the two pass unmolested to the palace.

When they arrived at the palace, they found that the palace was a lot smaller than they had expected. It was smaller than the pyramid in Scaraba. It had golden walls and looked regal, despite its size. There was one main tower at the center of the palace. To Ness, it looked like the Taj Mahal. Without any trepidation the two entered the palace.

The interior of the palace looked wide and was colorful. Paintings lined the walls and ceiling, depicting Faeries, elves, trolls, etcetera, all performing various acts from fighting, to the torture of humans, to dancing, to more erotic acts. Columns stood before them in rows of eight as they made their way through the palace. Even the floor depicted scenes of perverted actions, all of which disgusted the two humans present. Jeff checked his scanner and held up his hand. Both he and Ness froze. "They're coming," Jeff said ominously.

"The human children?" Ness asked.

Jeff nodded. There, the teens waited, Ness drawing out his iron bat and Jeff drawing his lightning gun and holding onto a Thunder Bomb as three figures came into view. Ness waited for the figures to get closer before he took any actions. Still, he took proper precautions and raised a Shield Omega over himself and Jeff. Step by step, the children came closer until they were in full view of the teens a dozen yards away. Two of the children still had some semblance of humanity to their features. They looked more like regular child Faeries than beasts. These were eight year olds, one a boy, the other a girl. These must have been the twins that Giygas had mentioned earlier. They both had black hair and gray eyes. The features of the children still looked human, save for the pointed ears. The boy wore a green tunic with brown trousers, while the girl wore a green sleeveless dress that went down to only an inch or two above her knees and leaves in her hair, what Ness considered to be a traditional Faerie dress. The third child, however, more strongly resembled the grotesque ape-like creature that Ness and the others had fought earlier. "Remember Jeff, don't use deadly force against them," Ness told him quietly.

Jeff nodded and he turned to face the trio of child opponents. The girl held out her hand electricity began to crackle around it. Her twin brother mirrored her movement and had electricity sparking around his fingers as well. Ness and Jeff's eyes went wide at the sight of the lightning. This lightning was not magical at all. It was psychic! At the very least, the twins were psychic. Ness stationed himself in front of Jeff, wanting to make sure that he intercepted the attacks from the twins. He only hoped that they did not use PSI Thunder at a high level, for if they did, the reflection of their attacks onto them might kill them, which was something Ness desperately wished to avoid. Lightning leapt from the fingertips of the children and bore down on Ness. Ness did not move as he intercepted the lightning. The familiar metal clang sounded as the lightning bounced off of Ness's body and right back at the twins. The twins stood stock still as they suffered the full brunt of their reflected attacks. The lightning struck them and arced all across their bodies. They cried out as they writhed in agony and fell to the floor, writhing. Too fast for Jeff's eyes to track, Ness was suddenly next to the children and he uncorked his vial of holy water. He sprinkled it on the children and said, "By the power of Our Lord, you are free." Suddenly, the cold, distant eyes of the twins became calm and normal. But the battle was not over yet. Jeff noticed the third child close in behind Ness, about to bring a club down on his head.

"Watch out, Ness!" Jeff cried in warning. Ness, however, had heard the third child arrive, though. He quickly turned around and grabbed the child. He sprinkled the holy water onto the child's head and said, "By the power of Our Lord, you are free." Immediately, the child's grotesque form melted away, revealing a ten year-old girl. Upon being freed, she looked into Ness's eyes and hugged him, thanking him for saving her. But the celebration would have to be cut short as Jeff called, "It's not over yet, Ness. Something else is coming."

Indeed, something else had come. What looked to be a Faerie prince no older than Ness had arrived on the scene. He wore a green tunic and trousers, and was accompanied by several pixies and Faerie bodyguards. As he arrived, he drew a magnificent sword from his hip. The leer in his eyes indicated that he was quite hostile. Ness ushered the children over to Jeff and raised a Shield Omega over the party. "Take care of the kids," he told Jeff. "I've got this one."

The Faerie prince gave a menacing laugh. "You must be out of your mind, mortal boy. There's no way you can beat me," the prince declared haughtily.

Ness's eyes narrowed onto the prince. "Let's find out," he responded with quiet confidence. He did not want to use up any more psychic energy, since he wanted to conserve his Magic Truffles for a time when he would really need them, so he drew out a couple of Iron Bombs. He pushed their activation studs and tossed them over to the Faerie prince. Despite having powerful magic, the Faerie prince was incredibly vulnerable to iron, especially in the Faerie World. The bombs bounced near the prince and his retinue and detonated, shredding them with iron nails and ball bearings. The two bombs were more than sufficient to kill the Faerie prince and his entire retinue. Blue gases leaked from the shattered remains of the Faeries. Within moments, the skirmish had ended.

After the brief skirmish, Ness noticed the walls on the far side of the palace split apart, revealing another passage. For a moment, Ness wondered if there was another enemy force coming, or if the rest of the children had been stationed at the palace. Just then, two trolls flew through the door. They landed on their backs and skidded to a halt, a leak of blue gases and a hole where their hearts would have been had they been human indicated that they had been on the receiving end of an attack of some sort. Ness looked ahead and saw two figures approaching. After a few seconds, the figures came into full view. The male had a human-like figure save for his pointed ears and more angular face. He had short silvery hair and wore golden armor. At his side, he held a golden sword which was likely more ceremonial than anything else. The second figure was a beautiful Faerie queen dressed in an exquisite green dress with leaves in her hair. Her eyes were icy blue, yet showed great warmth. Neither he nor Jeff could sense any hostility emanating from these Faeries. Ness instantly realized that these must have been Oberon and Titania. Both Faeries exuded tremendous power, yet there was a sense of benevolence about them as well. The hatred towards humanity that The Fool and his consort showed was not present in these two. The two approached Ness and appraised him.

"I am Oberon," the man said, extending his hand in friendship. Ness accepted it and they shook. Despite having been blessed with holy water and wearing iron, Oberon did not feel or show any ill effects of making contact with Ness. "And this is my wife, Titania," he finished after the handshake was done, indicating the woman.

"We are in your debt," Titania told him.

"My lady," Ness began, bowing before her since she was still royalty to him, and the true ruler of the Faerie world. Oberon and Titania cut him off, though.

"There isn't time for formalities or pleasantries," Titania told him. "Your friends are in great danger. Most of the army that was loyal to The Fool and his consort is attacking them. They are fighting a running battle as we speak and will soon engage the remaining children, who are being transformed into perversions of what they used to be. They need your help. Take the freed children back to the spirit woman and the archangel. I will then create a teleportation mark where you and your friend can go to help your friends."

"Thank you," Ness said graciously. "I will do what I can to help you take back your kingdom."

"Just save your friends and defeat The Fool and his consort," Oberon instructed. "We can take care of the rest."

Ness and Jeff nodded. Ness then ran over to Jeff and, after gathering the three children towards them, teleported all of them to Michael and Maria. As they disappeared, both Oberon and Titania said, "Good luck, mortal boy. May The One Above All watch over you." With that, the two of them then disappeared and got to work restoring their kingdom.

Ness quickly reappeared near the entrance to the Faerie World close to Maria, Michael, and the young boy they had rescued earlier. Upon reappearing there, the children went over to Michael and Maria and their friend. Under the eyes of Maria and Michael, the children felt comfortable, and Ness knew that they would be safe under the protection of Maria and Michael. Before leaving, though, the first child they had rescued came up to Ness and told him, "There's something you should know about your alien friend."

"Now's not a good time," Jeff warned Ness. "Paula and the others need our help."

Ness shrugged off Jeff's advice and asked the child, "What is it?"

The child answered, "When I was captured, I saw that alien help the Faeries capture me. But that's not important. What is important is that after you freed me, I heard the archangel, Michael, and the woman, Maria, talking to him. I didn't want to eavesdrop, but several things stood out. It seemed like discussion. The alien shouted at the angel and woman a lot and they warned Giygas that the path that he was taking would lead to his death, and that they wanted him to take a different path, or something like that. I didn't get all of it, but I'd be wary of this Giygas. He may be planning on betraying you."

Instantly, all of the feelings of trust that Ness had for Giygas vanished after the child had finished telling them what he had heard. "Come on, Ness, we've gotta help Paula and the others," Jeff told him, hurrying him along. Ness quickly followed Jeff, but turned to the child and said, "Thanks for the heads up." With that, Ness then teleported to Paula and the others, hoping that he would reach them in time.

Meanwhile, Paula, Poo, and Giygas were in the middle of the fight of their lives. Dozens of Faeires, pixies, trolls, goblins, Manly Fish and Manly Fish's Brothers surrounded the party. Both Paula and Poo had already used three of their Iron Bombs against the endless horde of Faeries that were assaulting them. This was in addition to the massive amount of psychic energy the group was pouring into their defenses and attacks as well, since they had not wanted to use up too many of their weapons before the battle against The Fool and his consort. Now that their psychic energy was also getting depleted, Paula and Poo were beginning to engage the enemy Faeries in close combat. Several trolls raised their clubs in an attempt to bring them down on Poo's head and decorate the landscape with Poo's brains. Poo was too fast for them, though. With blinding speed, he cut a swath through the trolls, felling four of the trolls before the remaining troll could even react. Even though the final troll had been able to react and raise his club to block Poo's initial swipe, that was the last action he ever made, for Poo responded with a reverse strike and managed to cut the troll in the chest. He then stabbed the troll through the heart and the troll fell over, dead. Poo then darted over to Paula, who was having issues of her own.

Paula had been engaged by a flight of pixies, all of which wished to turn her into a pincushion. The shield that Poo had managed to raise over the group was beginning to weaken due to the magical nature of the arrows the pixies fired. Paula swung her Non-Stick Fry Pan at pixie after pixie, managing to knock them out of the sky and to the ground. The iron in the pan was especially poisonous to them and each hit scored a kill. Still, for each pixie she managed to take out, three more rose in its place. Eventually, her shield could sustain no more attacks and she had to use the frying pan as an improvised shield to protect her face and neck. The magical arrows still impacted her chest, though her body armor prevented the arrows from penetrating, and the iron in the trauma plates negated their magic. Still, her armor was taking a pounding, and she did not know how it would hold up to the larger arrows or spears that the Faeries and trolls used. She was especially nervous about the trolls' arrows and spears. She quickly saw several trolls bearing down on her. Despite not having much psychic energy left in reserve, she still focused her energy into a PSI Thunder attack and unleashed the attack at the oncoming trolls. Since the trolls were exceedingly vulnerable to lightning, she only needed to power the attack to its Gamma level in order to be certain that she took down the trolls. As the stream of lightning struck each troll, they cried out and writhed in agony as the electricity arced all over their bodies, leaving severe burns all across their bodies. The trolls promptly fell over, their now dead bodies still writhing due to the electricity. That was it, though. She was now out of power. She quickly drew out her one of her bags of Magic Truffles and quickly devoured two of the truffles. They were foul tasting to her, but they were essential for her to maintain her psychic energy. She had already used two previously, so she was now down to six remaining truffles in all. Paula soon saw another host of Faeries approaching. She began to power a PSI Torrent attack in order to push them back when she heard a loud, familiar cry, "PSI Rockin Omega!"

A large ball of scarlet psychic energy fell among the onrushing Faeries and detonated into a globe of blood red psychic energy. The Faeries were instantly engulfed and consumed by the expanding globe of psychic energy. Those that had not been engulfed fled the expanding globe of energy, only to run into Poo's blade, Ness's iron bat, or into a volley of scarlet energy beams and lightning streams from Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol and lightning gun. The cries of the fighting, dying, and fleeing Faeries, pixies, and trolls echoed throughout the landscape. After a few minutes, though, the Faeries were whittled down to a much more manageable number. Upon seeing the ground littered with the remains of their cohorts, the few surviving Faeries decided that discretion was the better part of valor and they fled from the quintet of heroes.

Giygas, who had had his own groups of Faeries to deal with, was not in a particularly merciful mood, however. He extended his hand towards the fleeing Faeries and prepared to fire at them when Ness jumped in the way. "Wait!" he called to Giygas. "Don't do it," he pleaded.

"Give me one good reason not to kill them," Giygas replied, his voice seething with rage. He relished the opportunity to deal with the stragglers.

"Because it's the right thing to do. They are not a threat now. Let Oberon and Titania deal with them if they try to cause any more trouble."

Giygas's eyes narrowed in on Ness. "I thought you were stronger than that," he told Ness in a sinister tone. Before he could make sport of hunting down the fleeing Faeries, he sensed the presence of four newcomers. He turned to find four Faerie-like children standing before him and the others. There were three boys and one girl. These children looked to be a bit older than the others that they had rescued. The oldest was a Caucasian boy with red hair and green eyes, wearing a red t-shirt and blue shorts. He looked to be about thirteen years old. The next one was a girl with black hair that fell to just below her shoulders. She had gray eyes and looked to be about eleven or twelve years old. She was dressed in a green dress. The third boy had brown hair and was wearing a green and yellow striped t-shirt and blue shorts. He looked to be about ten. The final child was also ten, and had blond hair. He wore a white turtleneck and khaki pants. Ness and the others sensed that the girl and the ten year old boy with brown hair were both psychic.

Upon sighting the children, Jeff whipped out his scanner and took scans of the children. Indeed, his scans confirmed what he and the others had already suspected. These children were human. Ness and Paula sprang into action just as Jeff put away his scanner. The children, who had not shown any signs of metamorphosis, focused their gaze onto Ness and Paula. Lightning crackled around the girl's fingertips and she quickly unleashed the lightning at Ness, despite catching the glint of gold from Ness's shirt. Her lightning struck Ness and the familiar metallic clang of lightning striking a person protected by a Franklin Badge rang out. Her stream of lightning was reflected back at her. It also managed to catch the other psychic boy as well. As they were hit, lightning arced around their bodies and they fell to the ground, still writhing, but alive. Paula then targeted the two remaining children and powered a weak PSI Thunder attack. She knew that the usual electroconvulsive therapy effects of PSI Thunder would not necessarily work, but the lightning would knock them down so that they could free them from the Faeries' control. Paula unleashed the lightning and, just as she knew would happen, the attacks were not powerful enough to kill the two remaining children, but were powerful enough to knock them down. Ness and Paula quickly rushed over to the children. One by one, they knelt down next to each child, sprinkled holy water on them and said, "By the power of Our Lord, you are free." Immediately after the blessing had been completed, the children shot up, as if they had just been sleeping. They stumbled around for a few moments before managing to get their bearings.

Giygas soon came over to the children, who recognized him as having worked with the Faeries, and said, "It is time for you to return to go to a safe location." With that, he teleported himself and the other children away from the battlefield. After a few moments, he appeared in front of the teens once more.

"The children are with Maria," Giygas informed them.

"Good. Then let's get this Sanctuary over with," Jeff proclaimed. With that, the group headed off towards the location of the Sanctuary.

The road to the next Sanctuary was not free of incident, but it was not all that difficult. Along the way, groups of Faeries had engaged the heroes. However, a few Iron Bombs had been sufficient to deal with the Faeries. The party noticed that they were beginning to run low on Iron Bombs, but they still had plenty of Thunder Bombs for their upcoming fight against The Fool and his consort.

It did not take long for the group to spot the white swirl of energy that marked a Sanctuary location in the distance. They also felt the presence of two powerful Faeries and four extra bodyguard trolls. As the group began to approach, the four trolls charged right towards the group. Paula and Poo stepped forward and immediately powered two PSI Thunder attacks. Lightning arced around their fingertips and when the trolls were in range, they let fly with two streams of lightning. The streams of lightning instantly crossed the distance between the humans and the trolls, striking the trolls, burning holes into their chests, and causing electricity to arc across their bodes, which also left horrible burns on the skin of the trolls. The trolls fell over and roared and writhed in agony as they were defeated. Eventually, they succumbed to their injuries and died. The party passed the trolls and eventually reached the Sanctuary meeting no further resistance. Paula took this opportunity, though, to eat a Magic Truffle, leaving her with only five remaining.

Upon arriving at the swirl of white light that was the Sanctuary, two figures stepped out from the swirl. The man was wearing bright gold armor, and a golden aura shown around him. His face was incredibly beautiful and split into a wide grin, showing incredibly white teeth. The grin, however, consisted only of malice and sadism. His female companion, who was clothed in a green sleeveless shirt that stopped above her navel and a short skirt of the same color, gave a sensuous grin. Her uniform, which would have normally been incredibly seductive to mortals, merely cried out "Hit me with everything you've got," to the teens. The woman had blond hair and icy blue eyes. Her grin also contained pristine white teeth and was of inhuman beauty, and perversion.

"So you've finally reached us," The Fool began. His consort merely grinned. "I was hoping that my guards would take care of you, but they must not have been up to the task. I guess I'll still go through all the motions, though. So you've finally arrived," he said sarcastically. "This is the sixth Your Sanctuary location, but now it's ours! You will not be able to take it from us! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" With that, magic sparked from the fingers of The Fool and he fired a bolt of energy right towards the party.

Ness immediately raised a Shield Omega over the party in order to protect them from the attack, since this beam did not have any electrical properties. The beam quickly struck the shield and was reflected back at The Fool. His consort, however, stepped in front of the blast and she took it head on. A shield flared around her and she suffered no damage. Poo quickly extended his psychic senses and sensed that her shield was quite powerful and would be capable of blocking any normal close combat weapon or gun. Still, he wondered if it would be vulnerable to electricity. Poo, who himself was low on psychic energy, despite having eaten two Magic Truffles during the battle against the Faerie army, drew out a Thunder Bomb and tossed it towards the two Faeries. The bomb bounced in front of them and detonated. The electrical field of the bomb struck the shield, causing it to flare, but the field was unable to destabilize the shield and collapse it. The Fool's consort laughed. "Did you really think that we'd be so eager to face you if we did not have defenses against your puny weapons?" she mocked. Now it was her turn to attack.

The Fool's consort began by extending her arms forward. Electrical sparks began to crackle around her fingertips and Ness and Giygas stood in front of the party to shield the others from the ensuing attack. Giygas knew that his shield would hold, but Ness was not so certain about _his_ shield. Fortunately, he still had his Franklin Badge for protection. The Fool's consort unleashed her stream of lightning, which was large enough to engulf the entire party. Despite Ness and Giygas taking the brunt of the attack, some of the electricity made it back to Paula, Poo, and Jeff. The stream of lightning also instantly collapsed the counter shield that Ness had erected over the party. Giygas was unharmed, and the lightning that had struck Ness was reflected back at the Faeries. The two Faeries' shield, however merely flared as the reflected lightning was absorbed by the shield and dispersed harmlessly. The same could not be said for Ness's companions, though. Paula and Poo were still fine, only receiving the equivalent to a mild shock, but Jeff was already on the ground, writhing in pain, his iron armor conducting the electricity. Ness immediately used Lifeup Beta on his friend to restore him to health. However, Jeff was also paralyzed. Poo took this opportunity to use PSI Healing at its Gamma level to cure Jeff of his paralysis. Once Jeff was fully healthy, he reentered the fight.

While Ness and Poo had been helping Jeff, though, Paula had decided to go on the offensive. She powered a PSI Thunder Omega and unleashed it at the two Faeries. Since her attack was psychic, it had no problem phasing through the shields of The Fool and his consort. The lightning struck The Fool and his consort and they both cried out in agony as they writhed as lightning arced across their bodies, leaving vicious burns in their wake. The two Faeries both fell to one knee, but were still able to stay in the fight. Poo was quick to notice, though, that their shields had collapsed due to Paula's attack.

The Fool and his consort quickly regained their composure and initiated the next move. The Fool drew his golden sword and his consort drew two bronze daggers. They quickly charged towards the heroes, holding their weapons high. Ness, and Poo each drew a pair of Thunder Bombs and thumbed their activation studs. The two then tossed the quartet of bombs towards the Faeries. The Faeries did not heed the bombs that had landed at their feet, believing them to be normal grenades and, as such, considerably ineffective against the mostly energy Faeries. Unfortunately, they were quickly proven wrong when the bombs detonated and caught the Faeries in their detonation fields. The fields of electricity expanded and engulfed the Faeries, disrupting their physical patterns as they struggled to maintain their cohesion. Ness and Poo could see them begin to fade as they began to leak bluish gases. The Faeries were on the ropes now. All that was required was one final blast of PSI Thunder Omega from Paula. She powered the electrical attack and quickly unleashed it upon the Faeries before they could recover from the previous assault. The lightning struck the Faeries and they cried out in agony as they began to disintegrate, unable to maintain their physical cohesion. The psychic nature of the lightning also managed to damage their energy forms as well. After a few seconds of flailing and writhing, they disintegrated, and dispersed. Paula, Poo, and Giygas felt their presences disappear. The Fool and his consort were dead.

With the defeat of The Fool and his consort, Paula, Poo, and Giygas wasted no time approaching the Sanctuary and stepping into the light. Upon stepping into the light, they heard the sixth part of the Eight Melodies play in their heads. In addition to the melody, a memory came to the surface of each of the psychics. For Paula, it was when she was five. She remembered the first time she had unconsciously utilized her telepathy when she sensed that her father was arriving home earlier than expected and announced it to her mother. For Poo, it was the first time he felt the power of PSI when he was six. He remembered the lightning crackle in his fingers when a bully had tried to pick on him. Of course, Poo had managed to beat the bully, but he had to hold back so that the lightning would not hurt the bully too severely. For Giygas, it was merely a tender moment with Maria when he was six years old. He was looking out at the stars and he caught a glimpse of Maria looking out at the stars as well. He had sensed Maria trying to contact George to let him know that she was okay and to send her love, and hope that he was getting on with his life okay. He then heard Maria sing, "…_all day long now_…" Then, in a flash, the memories ended and the group found themselves back in the Faerie World. They noticed that the Faerie World was getting brighter and much more cheerful, as if a great darkness had been lifted.

As the group turned and walked back to Ness and Jeff. "Six down, two to go," Paula said cheerfully. As they prepared to depart they noticed two more Faeries approaching. These Faeries had the air of royalty about them. They stopped when they were about a few feet away and looked around. Ness immediately recognized them as being Oberon and Titania. "The Fool and his traitorous consort have been defeated," Oberon said in a normal tone of voice, which rang out over the landscape.

"Yes, he has," Titania echoed in reply.

"We owe you a great debt of gratitude," Oberon continued. "No gift that we know of will ever be enough to express our gratitude. However, please accept these gifts as a small token of our gratitude." Both Oberon and Titania then approached Ness and Jeff and handed them each a necklace with a red jewel from Oberon, and a green jewel from Titania. They then handed more necklaces with mementos to Paula and Poo as well.

"These are our mementos to you," Titania explained. "They each have the ability to revive their holder the instant they suffer a fatal attack. They will even prevent you from dying from an attack that would normally annihilate you or inflict sufficient damage to render you unable to be revived by magic or psychic techniques. They will also only activate for lesser injuries and status conditions when no other treatment options are available."

Each of the teens thanked Oberon and Titania. Ness quickly noticed that Giygas was standing a ways away from the Faerie King and Queen, and that they had not given him any mementos. Ness began to think back about the talk that the child had had with him. Suddenly, where he had once trusted Giygas almost implicitly, now he was wondering whether or not he should actually doubt Giygas once more. After all, he was pretty much a non-factor in the battle against The Fool and his consort, not that his presence would have helped out all that much. Ness then shook the thought. He'd talk it over with the others when they got back to the Sky Runner II. Now, they had to get back to the kids and take them back to the outside world, and the waiting rescue forces. With that, the group gathered around Ness and he teleported them back to the entrance to the Faerie World.

Once they arrived back at the entrance to the Faerie World, Ness found Maria looking over the children. She saw him and said, "Michael was called back to Heaven. As such, I have been watching after these children while you were gone. That was all I was allowed to do." She paused and a portal appeared in front of her, away from the entrance to the outside world. She approached the children, who were immediately calmed by her mere presence, and told them, "This doorway will take you back to your homes and families. You don't have to worry about the evil Faeries anymore."

The children grinned, but before heading through the portal, turned back to Ness and the others and thanked them. Then each of the children went over to Ness and his friends and handed them a bag of what looked to be dust. Since there were eight children, the teens received two bags of what they viewed as Faerie Dust. The ten year-old boy with brown hair then went over to the teens and whispered to them out of earshot of Giygas, "These are bags of Star Dust. These bags of Star Dust can be used to make you intangible. Even when you're intangible, though, you can still attack your opponent, even with physical attacks and they can't do anything to you unless they try to attack your mind directly. These are one-time use items, though, so save them for the toughest foes. Also, these items were not made by Faeries or PSI Aliens, but by some group of creatures called Star Sprites so there won't be any side effects with the use of the dust."

The teens each nodded. The eight children then lined up in front of the portal that Maria had opened that would lead them to each of their homes. The children then filed through the portal and returned to their waiting families. Once that was finished, the portal closed and the group was now alone with Maria.

"For the sakes of those children, I cannot thank you enough for saving those them," she told them.

Ness and the others gave humble smiles and replied, "It was not problem." Giygas made no comment, though, since he had done relatively little during the battles, a fact that Ness had been quick to take notice of.

Once they were finished, Paula, Jeff, Poo, and Giygas quickly went over to the entrance to the outside world and waited for Ness to join them. As Ness was about to join them, he heard Maria whisper to him sadly, "Please pray for my son, Giygas. Let him know that he's not alone."

Ness looked back at Maria and saw the love she still had for Giygas, despite their fight onboard the flagship so long ago. "I will," Ness replied, nodding. With that, he rejoined his friends. After he had left, Maria returned to Heaven to watch over Ness and his friends, as well as her adoptive son, Giygas. Ness, however, began to be suspicious of Giygas due to how Maria had asked him to pray for Giygas.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15:

Ness and the party emerged back into the outside world of the Stonehenge monument. They looked around and saw that the sun was setting. It was about to be nightfall. The Chosen Four and Giygas went over to the Sky Runner II, which was still safely hidden from enemy detection, though he doubted that there were any enemies present. Once they arrived, Jeff whipped out his remote and pushed a button. The Sky Runner II's boarding ramp lowered and the quintet quickly boarded the craft. Once they were onboard, the boarding ramp retracted.

Onboard the Sky Runner II, Jeff quickly went over to the pilot's station so he could begin the takeoff sequence. Giygas took the seat next to him as Ness, Paula, and Poo gathered around the two of them so they could discuss their next course of action.

"Okay, we've claimed six Sanctuaries, that leaves two Sanctuaries remaining, one here on Earth, and one on the moon," Ness started. "Which do we go to first?"

"Lava Mountain, of course," Giygas stated, as if the choice was obvious.

"Why there?" Jeff asked. Even though he agreed with Giygas, he had overheard the child's warning to Ness. He wondered if Giygas may have had an ulterior motive to going to Lava Mountain. After all, the Sanctuary Guardian was said to be the Carbon Dog. "I'm just asking," Jeff added quickly.

"Simple," Giygas retorted. "Because it is the only Sanctuary remaining on Earth. The Sanctuary on the moon is close to a PSI Lord base that is very heavily guarded against attack and intruders. Besides, Lava Mountain is not very heavily guarded. My brother has likely pulled back all of his forces on the ground to Mount Itoi."

"The American forces, maybe," Ness replied. "What about the forces that are in South America, or Asia, Europe, and Africa? Where is Lava Mountain?"

"It's a volcano on one of the Hawaiian Islands," Giygas answered indignantly. "It is a dormant volcano. However, there is fire and heat coming from the surface. Think Fire Spring, only underneath a mountain. As for the other forces, they are being consolidated as well, those that are not currently engaged in war. You must understand that our ground invasion forces were woefully undermanned for the tasks that were given to them. They had often relied on orbital bombardment in order to soften up the enemy targets before beginning to launch their real attacks. With the Israeli forces and Russian forces having pushed back the Starmen and their troops, the only major force that's left is in America. Assuming that my brother does not send in any more reinforcements, the ground war will be won by your people in a few weeks at most."

"So then, is it decided? Is Lava Mountain our next target?" Jeff asked.

Ness nodded, as did Paula and Poo. Giygas gave a smile. That was all that Jeff needed. "Okay. Next stop, Lava Mountain on one of the Hawaiian Islands. It's going to take a while to get there so you all can sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight. This flight will be around six hours or so at maximum safe atmospheric speed."

At the mention of the length of the flight, both Ness and Paula yawned. Jeff was also feeling a little tired. Even Poo seemed to give a slight yawn. Giygas went over to Jeff and told him, "Go back and get some rest with your friends. I can handle the piloting of the ship while you sleep. I'll alert you if we fall under attack and I can't handle it."

Ness was apprehensive at letting Giygas pilot the ship at first, remembering the warning that the child had given him, as well as Maria's request. He then remembered all of the times that Giygas could have betrayed them, as well as the times that he had helped them out of jams in the past. Even if Giygas was using them, he had a feeling that Giygas would reveal his true loyalties, assuming he was, in fact, working for the PSI Aliens or simply himself, after they had claimed the last two Sanctuaries. Until then, it was in Giygas's best interests to help the party accomplish their goal. With that, the quartet headed into the back cabin. Upon entering the cabin, they went over to their pallets to unpack their pajamas and they each took turns using the bathroom to shower and change before emerging once more. Once they had all finished changing and washing up, they went over to their pallets to sleep for the remainder of the flight.

Out in the cockpit, Giygas sat at the pilot's station and mulled over the plans for the next two Sanctuaries. He knew that the Carbon Dog, who could also transform into the Diamond Dog, was the Sanctuary Guardian of Lava Mountain. The Carbon Dog was a dangerous opponent, and stronger than before, and Diamond Dog was even stronger, now being able to use the same fire attacks that it could use as Carbon Dog. With those abilities, the Carbon Dog was one of the stronger Sanctuary Guardians, possibly one of the strongest individual Sanctuary Guardians of all. Indeed, the real trouble was just coming up. So far, the trips had been child's play and Giygas knew this. These next two Sanctuaries would be tough, but not impossible. He sat back in the chair and gave an audible sigh. He wondered if it would not be a bad idea to get some rest himself. While he needed far less sleep than humans, he did need some rest. After all, he had exerted himself a bit in the Faerie World during the running battle and had gotten little rest before the trek into the Faerie World. He was about to nod off to sleep when a warning chime rang in the cockpit.

The chime jolted Giygas to full alertness and he checked the sensors. He grimaced. "Just what I need to see, UFOs," he muttered as four blips in a diamond formation appeared on scanners. He extended his telepathic senses and could sense the crews of the four Fighter UFOs flying their craft. His hopes that they had somehow not detected the Sky Runner II were instantly dashed as he sensed that the pilots had picked up the Sky Runner II on their sensors and were beginning pursuit. Giygas instinctively activated the dorsal and ventral energy cannons, charging them to full power. He glanced at the specifications of the cannons and read that they had an effective range of ten miles, at most, in atmosphere. While they had longer range than the UFOs' cannons, these Fighter UFOs were faster than the Sky Runner II in the atmosphere. Giygas also detected shields rising over the hulls of the alien aircraft. Giygas quickly activated the shields of the Sky Runner II and waited for the UFOs to get within firing range of the primary cannons, since he did not want to waste any missiles against these foes, since missiles were already in short supply and there was no telling how many missiles they would need once they got to Hawaii. As the UFOs closed in on the Sky Runner II, a warning siren sounded in the cockpit. He quickly flicked a switch to soundproof the doors to the main cabin and deactivate the warning sirens in the cockpit. The human children needed their sleep. Giygas could sleep later. Once that was finished, he returned his focus to the approaching UFOs.

He watched the scanners as the distance between the two forces decreased. Giygas smiled wryly at the upgraded Fighter UFOs. Their speed was far greater than he had expected. Still, he was a little disappointed that his younger brother had not bothered to put missiles onto the flying saucers. That would have made this battle much more interesting. As it was, he had not, and they were going to suffer for it. Despite their superior flat out speed, they were not as maneuverable as the Sky Runner, nor did they have the weapons range of the Sky Runner, even discounting the Sky Runner II's missile weapons. As he watched the distance between him and the UFOs scroll down, he soon saw the numbers flash red. They were now within firing range of the energy cannons.

Giygas gave a grin as he psychically took control of the energy cannons. The energy cannons swiveled around until they faced the rear of the ship. Giygas removed the safeties from the guns, which freed them to fire, and made certain that they were fully charged. Once everything was ready Giygas pressed the red button and the cannons let loose with a barrage of scarlet energy bolts towards the UFOs. The first barrage of energy bolts struck the lead Fighter UFO squarely in the center of its mass. An opaque field of energy surrounded the craft as the first couple of energy bolts struck the shields of the craft. However, the third energy blast managed to breach the shields of the craft and score a hit on the cockpit of the Fighter UFO. The fourth blast bored a hole straight through the enemy craft, causing it to spew smoke, flame, and metallic debris. The craft listed to its side as it lurched forward and went into an uncontrolled downward dive, smoke trailing the craft. Giygas had not stopped there, though. He instantly targeted the craft to the left of the now downed Fighter UFO. Another quartet of bolts were fired and again, the same results were shown. The first two bolts were absorbed by the shields of the Fighter UFO, but the third managed to breach the shields and inflict direct damage to the craft. This time, however, the bolts struck the craft dead center, which was disastrous for the craft since there seemed to be a weapons cache or ammunition stores in that section, for the UFO immediately went up in flames and exploded in midair. Only a burnt out hulk of scrap metal fell back down to the Earth, which twisted, distorted, and collapsed upon impacting with the ground.

The third and fourth UFOs, however, made themselves a bit more difficult to hit. They began to perform patterns of evasive maneuvers in order to avoid the incoming energy fire. Giygas grinned at their attempts to evade his fire. He had programmed in the evasive maneuver patterns that they were using, so he had no problem keeping track of them and firing more barrages of energy. The third UFO was quickly taken out of the fight, the first two energy blasts depleting the shields of the craft, while the final two gouged two large holes into the saucer. The saucer then broke into an uncontrolled downward dive and soon impacted the ground and exploded. This only left the fourth UFO, which was not smart enough to retreat from the obviously superior Sky Runner II. One final volley of energy fire was more than enough to deal with this annoyance. The fourth UFO was raked with energy fire. After his shields collapsed, the hull was pierced by many scarlet pulses of energy. The Fighter UFO exploded in midair while the Sky Runner II remained outside of the UFO's weapons range. Once the battle was over, Giygas sat back and relaxed, and no more UFOs came to attack the Sky Runner for the rest of the flight to Hawaii.

When the Sky Runner II was getting close to one of Hawaii's smallest islands, Ni'ihau, Giygas decelerated the craft and lowered the Sky Runner II so that it would fly below the standard radar sensors of the island and the military base. Giygas felt that if the U.S. Navy were alerted to the presence of the Sky Runner II that the Starmen would soon learn of the Sky Runner II's location. Even with the fallback to Mount Itoi for the American Starman assault forces, he felt that erring on the side of caution was preferable to taking a needless risk and being proven wrong. As such, he proceeded with his plan to fly under Earth military radar in the hopes of avoiding detection. He then psychically checked up on Ness and the others in the cabin in the back of the bridge.

Inside the cabin, Ness and the others were waking up after a nice six-hour nap. As they awakened, Ness and the others let out a long stretch as they each gave a yawn. The group as one checked the time on the wall. They found that they were likely pretty close to Hawaii now, and to the Lava Mountain Sanctuary. The group got up off of their pallets and got dressed in their standard uniforms, save for Paula and Jeff. Jeff wore a green t-shirt and shorts, and Paula wore her pink t-shirt and blue shorts, both of them dressing for the environment, which they knew would be hot. Even if the volcano was dormant or extinct, they were going to be going deep into the volcano to the Sanctuary, so chances were that it would be quite unpleasant. Of all of the heroes, minus Giygas, Paula and Poo were best suited for the volcano run due to their PSI Freeze, and Paula's PSI Torrent. Not only that, but PSI Freeze at low levels could also keep them cool in the blistering heat of the volcano. The heroes said nary a word as they followed an almost robotic routine of getting washed and dressed.

Once the quartet was ready, they headed out onto the bridge. When they filed onto the bridge, Giygas looked back at them and asked, "How did you sleep?" He knew the answers that they would give, though. He just wanted to make some conversation, something that did not seem to be high on the teens' list to do.

"Fine," each of the group said in unison. "Were there any problems while we were sleeping?" Jeff asked, wondering about the condition of his Sky Runner II.

"Nothing I couldn't handle," Giygas replied. He then regale them with the story of how he had shot down four pursuing Fighter UFOs with only the quad energy cannons. Jeff beamed with pride at how the Sky Runner II had handled the enemy starships. Paula gave a kind smile as well. Poo gave a small smile at the telling of the story, but he was more focused on preparing for the run through Lava Mountain. Ness, however, gave no reaction, one way or the other. He still wondered if he should be suspicious of Giygas. Giygas had had a perfect opportunity to betray them or outright kill them while they were sleeping yet he did no such thing. He could have abandoned the Sky Runner II to the pursuing UFOs, but instead he shot them down before they had even managed to get into firing range. If Giygas was, indeed, planning on betraying them, he had passed up some fine opportunities to do so. As for the potential of using them to gain access to the Sanctuaries, Ness now realized that if Giygas wanted the Sanctuaries, he did not need them to help him get them. He did not even have to fight the Sanctuary Guardians. All he would have to do is step into the lights in order to get what he needed. That now left only one question, why was the child that warned him about Giygas's potential betrayal so worried about Giygas betraying them? What had Giygas and Maria been talking about that he had overheard? Perhaps he was just jumping to conclusions too quickly. After all, the child had not had the experience with Giygas that Ness and the others had. Still, something at the back of his mind was warning him not to trust Giygas implicitly. There were some things that he should still hold tight to his chest. He then shrugged off the thought. He would know soon enough if Giygas was planning on betraying them or not. All he had to do was prepare himself for any eventual outcome. And right now, he had to primarily prepare for the Carbon Dog and its later form, the Diamond Dog.

Giygas rose from the pilot's seat and Jeff replaced him. Ness, Paula, and Poo also took their stations. Jeff's first move was to look at the sensor screen. He quickly found that they were coming up on Lava Mountain on Ni'ihau. Another check of the sensor alerted him to the fact that the Sanctuary was deep beneath the surface of the island. The energy from this Sanctuary seemed to be greater than the others so far, though Jeff did not know if that was because the Sanctuary housed more power, or because there were stronger enemies present at this Sanctuary.

After twenty minutes or so of flying, the island was within visual distance. Jeff slowed down the craft even more and zeroed in on the location of the Sanctuary. He noted that it was located in the interior of the extinct volcano on the island. This would make landing the craft not too difficult, but the group would likely have a long walk to the Sanctuary. The fact that it was extinct likely meant that it should not be too hot down there. Still, he had dressed as if the place were still hot, mainly because he had a feeling that the PSI Alien presence in the volcano could cause it to become active.

Jeff continued to guide the Sky Runner II down to the island. He scanned the mountainside to see if there was a decent place to land. As he was scanning the mountain, he discovered what looked to be a cave that led into the mountain, itself. This interested him so he took the craft lower for a closer look. Giygas also stared at the three dimensional holographic display and noted the entrance. "That's the cave entrance my people created to gain quick access to the Sanctuary for those who could not teleport," Giygas explained. "It's also a security system. That cave is the only entrance or exit to the mountain."

Jeff then checked the other monitors and noticed that the temperature inside the cave was much higher than expected. He turned around and told the others, "Hey guys, I think that the volcano might be reactivating. I'm reading temperatures of at least one hundred and twenty degrees near the mouth of the cave, when the standard ambient temperature is only in the mid-nineties. You'll all want to dress light."

That was not a problem for them, since the party was already dressed pretty light, and they had anticipated the potential of the volcano possibly reactivating. Jeff brought the craft down lower as he scanned for a spot to land that was close to the entrance to the volcano. Eventually, he found a flat area that was about a hundred yards or so away from the volcano. The Sky Runner II would be visible to anyone who was looking for it from the sky, though. He quickly checked his sensors once more to see how many lifeforms there were in the area. He detected only a few humans, literally, on the island, as most of the island's population had fled to the other Hawaiian Islands when the Starmen had come to set up a Sanctuary in the volcano. The few that remained behind were likely either working with the military and spying on the Starman forces there, or were collaborating with the Starmen.

Jeff gently guided the craft to the landing spot that he had picked out. The craft slowly descended and the landing pads extended from the ventral surface of the craft, jutting out just beneath the craft. The flying saucer touched down softly and barely a shutter was felt inside the cockpit.

Once the craft had landed, Jeff switched off the power. He wanted to conserve fuel for their trip to the moon. Once they had completed their landing procedures, the group went to the cabin to gather their equipment. They each made sure that they brought their strongest weapons and items with them. They had a feeling that they would need them for this trek. The group also made certain to bring their mementos and their Bags of Star Dust as well, since the Diamond Dog had a one-hit KO move.

After equipping themselves, the group returned to the cockpit and Jeff went over to the control center that extended the boarding ramp. He pushed the button and the ramp extended downward. The four humans and the PSI Alien descended down the ramp and stepped onto the rocky surface of Ni'ihau, and made their way over to the volcano's entrance cave. Paula extended her telepathic senses and glanced over at the others. "The volcano's occupied," she said in an ominous tone. "I'm sensing some familiar enemies there as well. Be on your guard. We've got the Psychic Psychos and Major Psychic Psychos, along with Soul Consuming Flames, Evil Elementals, and various fire-based animals as well."

"Sounds like this Sanctuary is going to be pretty tough," Jeff commented. Upon hearing Paula's report, he was glad that he had brought along his Star Pendant for this trip. Ness and Paula were also similarly equipped, which was most fortuitous since one of the attributes of the Star Pendant was its ability to protect its wearer from fire-based attacks. These pendants would make their trek through the volcano much more bearable. The good news was that there did not seem to be any indication of Starmen present in the cave and the volcano. That was going to make this trek a little easier. The others looked over at Paula and Giygas, who indicated that it was safe to move.

The group arrived at the cave's entrance and Paula took another scan, just to confirm her initial findings. She still sensed the initial enemy force that she had felt earlier. There seemed to be a bit more of them than before, but she was able to get a solid number.

"How many?" Ness asked.

"About forty, so far," Paula responded. "Ten Psychic Psychos, five Major Psychic Psychos, ten Soul Consuming Flames, and fifteen Evil Elementals. Be careful of the Evil Elementals since they can posses you."

The others nodded. They had remembered that fact from their trip through the Fire Spring during their first adventure. Still, there was nothing in the volcano that they had not faced before. The only real problems would be the Psychic Psychos and Major Psychic Psychos since they were likely brainwashed minions of the PSI Aliens and were not necessarily, in and of themselves, evil. Once the party had taken stock of the situation, they entered the cave.

The cave was dark, which slowed down their progress for a moment. Paula soon took the lead and stretched out her hand. A small ball of fire appeared in front of it, a weak PSI Fire. The ball of flame served as a torch so that they could see the interior. Not far into the cave, the group saw several flames coming their way. At first, the group thought that it was an attack from either an automated defense system, or a Psychic Psycho that had managed to shield himself from Paula's scan. Paula quickly extended her telepathic senses and found that it was neither of these. It was merely magical bats that had been set on fire. The fire, though, was not harming the bats. Her eyes then flashed in warning. They had been detected. Paula quickly put out her own fire and powered a PSI Freeze Alpha. Aside from being covered in flames, the bats were not all that dangerous. She quickly stretched out her hands and propelled the PSI Freeze Alpha forward. The cave was pretty narrow so Paula doubted that she would have any trouble hitting the bats. The snowflake of PSI Freeze rocketed forward and when it was close enough to the bats to strike them with the explosion, Paula detonated the snowflake into an icy explosion. The icy energy and snowflakes covered the bats, extinguishing their flames and knocking them out of the air. The bats crashed into the floor, with a thud and were stunned for a moment. Eventually, they managed to rise into the air and retreated away from the humans. Paula also sensed that her attack had returned the bats to normal and the psychic energy that was controlling them was gone. With that threat neutralized, Paula powered another ball of fire in her hands and led the group further into the cave.

Not far down the cave, there was a light in the distance. The group knew that it was the opening into the volcano, itself. Without any trepidation, the group surged ahead. The opening did, indeed, lead into the volcano itself. Upon entering the volcano proper the group was assaulted by a wall of heat. The temperature had to have increased by a good twenty degrees at least. As they stepped forward, they felt that the ground was solid. Their shoes were not igniting, which was a good thing. Paula and Poo immediately used low-level PSI Freeze attacks on themselves in order to cool themselves down. As for Ness and Jeff, though, they would have to rely on the canteens of water that they had in their backpack, and possibly PSI Healing if they began to overheat. Giygas, meanwhile, needed no augmentation or cooling at all. His people were quickly and easily able to adapt to various environments, particularly where the only main difference was heat and cold. Giygas walked forward, along with the others, extending his psychic senses in order to find the Sanctuary.

All throughout the volcano, there were small streams and leaks of lava on the floor. Still, Giygas did not feel as if the volcano was in any imminent danger of erupting, and once the Sanctuary was claimed, the volcano would return to its dormant state. There were also small hills that where lava oozed from the tops, like mini-volcanoes. Not only that, but there were also larger hills and ledges that led higher up into the mountain. Ness noted that this was a lot like the Fire Spring Sanctuary. He stared at the ledges and wondered if they were artificial or natural. Giygas's staring up the ledges indicated that that was the direction of the Sanctuary. The group made preparations to go forward, but before they could do so, a quartet of Psychic Psychos and a Major Psychic Psycho had come out to meet them, all of them wearing business suits made of psychic flames and grey helmets and glasses that covered their heads and eyes.

Wasting no time, Giygas raised a shield over the entire party in anticipation of the attacks that were about to be launched by the Psychos. The Psychic Psychos and Major Psychic Psycho immediately launched an attack consisting of PSI Fire Beta, and PSI Fire Gamma for the Major Psychic Psycho. The fire-based psychic attacks bounced off of the shield and were reflected back at the enemy party. However, the enemies were quite strong against fire, so their reflected attacks inflicted little harm to the five fire elemental psychics. Paula and Poo were the first to retaliate, powering a PSI Freeze Omega and a PSI Freeze Gamma respectively. The two snowflakes of psychic energy appeared over their heads and were quickly propelled at the enemy psychics. The two snowflakes of psychic energy streaked towards their targets, who retaliated with a quartet of PSI Fire Alpha blasts, and a Paralysis attack from the Major Psychic Psycho. The Paralysis attack was ineffective against Ness, the target of the attack, due to his Star Pendant. Ness made no response, though. He simply waited for the battle to end, since he knew that Paula and Poo could easily handle the situation and he did not want to get in their way. The Fire Alpha blasts that had been launched by the Psychic Psychos, however, were quite strong and concentrated two on one against the Freeze attacks launched by Paula and Poo. The two Fire Alpha attacks, however, were unable to neutralize the attacks when they clashed and the snowflakes of PSI Freeze plowed their way towards the enemy psychics. Eventually, the snowflakes of psychic energy managed to reach the psychic quintet and they detonated, encasing them in freezing psychic energy. The fiery nature of their suits allowed them to avoid being frozen solid, but the attacks were sufficient to stop them. The five psychics fell to the ground, their helmets falling off of their heads, and their suits returning to normal. Paula instantly sensed that the controlling force behind the psychics had been neutralized and that they were normal once more. Paula also sensed only very latent psychic powers emanating from them, and those were mostly things like predicting the future or having better luck than most at games like Poker or Roulette. Upon recovering, the five humans fled from the scene and searched for a way out of the volcano.

With that battle out of the way, the group quickly ascended the cliff wall, with Giygas telekinetically lifting them up the wall. Once the group reached the first ledge, they found four more Psychic Psychos, and a Soul Consuming Flame waiting for them. Again, Paula and Poo took the lead, with Giygas lending his help as well. They each powered their most powerful PSI Freeze attacks and launched them at the Psychic Psychos and the Soul Consuming Flame before the enemies could react. The attacks struck the Psychic Psychos and the Soul Consuming Flame and the explosions showered them all in snowflakes of freezing psychic energy. The Soul Consuming Flame was encased in ice and frozen solid, while the Psychic Psychos merely had their suits extinguished. The battle was over in an instant as Ness went over to shatter the Soul Consuming Flame and the Psychic Psychos had been returned to normal. The group then scanned the ledge for a way up to the next ledge that did not require telekinesis. They quickly found it in the form of a rope. The four approached the rope and the each proceeded to climb it. Poo led the way, followed by Ness, then Paula, with Jeff bringing up the rear.

The group emerged onto the next ledge and were met with a quartet of Evil Elementals, fiery ghosts that could posses opponents. The lead Evil Elemental rushed towards Paula and tried to posses her, only to bounce off of her body, its possession attempt an abysmal failure. Paula quickly retaliated with a stream of PSI Fire Omega at the ghosts. The ghosts squealed in horror as the fires closed in on them. Unable to evade Paula's attack, they were instantly incinerated by the stream of PSI Fire Omega, fading into nothingness within a few moments. Even Giygas's eyes went wide at Paula's demonstration of power. Once the battle was over, the group soon found a ladder leading up to the next ledge. The group went over and proceeded to climb the ledge, speaking hardly a word the entire time.

Once they emerged on the next ledge, they were met by two Psychic Psychos and two Major Psychic Psychos. The group gritted their teeth as the Psychic Psychos quickly unleashed PSI Fire Beta and PSI Fire Gamma attacks against the party. Paula quickly raised a PSI Shield Sigma over the party, since she could feel her psychic reserves slipping and she did not want to waste the energy that would be necessary for using PSI Shield Omega when the enemy was strong against their own attacks. The psychic fire attacks struck Paula's PSI Shield Sigma and splashed against the shield harmlessly. Ness and Poo were quickly powering psychic attacks of their own, which quickly prompted Paula to scan the Major Psychic Psychos so that she could identify whether or not they had powered any PSI Shield Omegas. Indeed, she sensed the shields having risen over the party. She then yelled, "Wait, don't use psychic attacks on them!"

Ness and Poo immediately powered down their Freeze and Rockin attacks, already knowing the solution to the situation. Paula, Poo, and Giygas immediately powered their PSI Thunder attacks and unleashed them against the Psychic Psychos and the Major Psychic Psychos. The psychic lightning plowed through the psychic counter shield that the Major Psychic Psychos had powered over the party and struck the party directly. The lightning struck the enemies and arced across their bodies. The lightning was not fatal, but it did manage to disrupt the controlling force behind the Psychos and force them to become calm. Poo finished the process with a Brainshock Omega and the battle was over. The former Psychic Psychos and Major Psychic Psychos rose and gazed at their surroundings, wondering where they were. Upon realizing that they were inside a volcano, they quickly searched for the exit. They quickly found the ladder and proceeded down said ladder and made their way towards the volcano's exit.

"Okay, that's all of the Psychic Psychos, and there are only two Major Psychic Psychos left," Paula informed the others. "The other Major Psychic Psychos are on the ledge above us. They haven't raised any PSI Shield Omegas yet, so if we can catch them off guard, we can cure them without having to fight." With that, the team searched for the next ladder, which would lead to the fourth ledge. Upon finding the ladder they proceeded to climb the ladder and emerge on the next ledge.

After emerging onto the next ledge, they faced off against the two remaining Major Psychic Psychos. Paula yelled, "Now!" Poo immediately powered his Brainshock Omega and unleashed it against the Major Psychic Psychos. Immediately, the fiery suits went out, returning to normal, and the two humans made no hostile gestures on the teens. They staggered forward a bit, but caught themselves before they had fallen. They quickly looked around and, upon finding themselves in a volcano, proceeded to head down to the lower ledge and made their way out of the volcano without saying a word besides a quick, "thank you," to the teens. Ness and the others did not mind, though. They were in a rush, themselves. They took a few steps forward and were met with several Soul Consuming Flames. Paula and the others grinned. There were no Psychic Psychos to force them to go easy on the Flames, so Paula merely powered a PSI Torrent and unleashed it upon the Soul Consuming Flames. The eyes of the lava-bodied foes went wide with horror as the tidal wave of water-based psychic energy crashed down upon them, hardening them into stone, effectively killing them. Ness made certain that they were dead by walking over to the hardened lava enemies and shattering them with a series of swings of his baseball bat without saying a word, as if it were now routine to do so. With that minor annoyance out of the way, the group then searched for the next ladder that would lead to the ledge above. Upon finding the ladder, they proceeded to make their way up to the next ledge.

On the last ledge, they saw an opening to another cave, very similar to Fire Spring. Paula called out to everyone, "The Sanctuary's in the next chamber." However, before they would be able to enter, almost a dozen Evil Elementals appeared in front of the party. Ness and the others growled. "Not again," Poo grumbled as he stood behind Paula. Paula quickly powered another stream of PSI Fire Omega and unleashed the psychic flames against the Evil Elementals. Despite being fiery spirits, they were quite vulnerable to fire. Each of the Evil Elementals caught up in Paula's stream of PSI Fire were destroyed, falling apart and dissipating upon being consumed by the flames. Eight Evil Elementals were destroyed by Paula's assault, with two others suffering severe injuries. That left four evil spirits. Jeff quickly whipped out his Gaia Beam pistol and took a series of shots at the remaining spirits, going for the two unwounded spirits while the wounded ones tried to posses Paula. The Evil Elementals that tried to posses Paula merely splattered against her when they attempted to posses her, having come at her too hard in their wounded state to maintain their ectoplasmic integrity upon making contact with her, her crucifix and prayers offering her all the protection she needed. The other two Evil Elementals had decided to go after Ness and Poo before Jeff gave them something else to think about with his series of shots from the Gaia Beam pistol. The lances of energy that erupted from the barrel of the pistol struck the Evil Elementals squarely in the center of mass, but they did not manage to destroy them. Poo quickly decided to end the fight, though, with a blast of PSI Thunder Gamma, since the Evil Elementals had already been wounded. Lightning leapt from Poo's fingers and struck the Evil Elementals, drilling holes straight through their ectoplasmic bodies. The ghosts then dispersed, leaving nothing behind in the material world.

After the battle had concluded, the group took stock of themselves. Ness noticed that Paula was running low on psychic energy so he took out a couple of his Magic Truffles and handed them to her. "Here, take these," he offered.

Paula shook her head. "I can't," she responded, graciously trying to turn him down. "You may need those Magic Truffles later."

"I have enough truffles in my bag, already," he responded. "And you've already used up a full bag of your own since you're the psychic artillery of the team. Take them," he insisted. "You need these more than I do; more than any of us do, really."

Eventually, Paula acquiesced to Ness's offer and accepted the Magic Truffles. While she did not like their taste, she could not deny their restorative effects on her psychic energy. She instantly felt revitalized by the truffles. Poo also took the time to eat one of his own truffles, wanting to make sure that he was at full psychic health before going into battle with the Carbon Dog/Diamond Dog. Just as the group was about to make their way into the cave entrance and into the next part of the mountain, Jeff looked down at the ground and noticed a gift box. He quickly went over to the box, opened it, and examined the contents inside. Inside, he found a Broken Transceiver. Jeff had a feeling that he could use the parts from the Broken Transceiver to finish an invention that he had been thinking about building. He already had a Broken Machine back at Saturn Valley, which could be turned into a Counter PSI Unit, and he had the other required pieces at the lab. This would allow him to complete his most ambitious work, the PSI Disruptor, a weapon that would allow him to really shine along with his friends in battle, and would be essential should Giygas, indeed, actually turn out to be a traitor. He gathered the Broken Transceiver into his arms and quickly took off his backpack and stuffed the weapon into the backpack. He also took out a couple Multi Bottle Rockets from his backpack and held them in his hands. He knew that he would be using them soon. Once the party was ready to go, they made their way into the cave.

The interior of the small cave was dark, but there was a light shining not too far away from the entrance. They group knew that this light would lead to the Sanctuary. They group charged towards the light and quickly emerged in another cavern of the volcano. Inside this caver, there were more small springs of fire and lava, but there were no enemies present that they could detect. The heroes looked ahead and saw a white swirl of light that signaled that they had reached the seventh Sanctuary. The quintet took a few steps forward and a familiar voice echoed throughout the cavern. "So, you all finally got here. This is your seventh Sanctuary location, but it's mine now. Take it from me, if you dare…" Just then, a massive, ferocious, flaming dog, far larger than any ordinary dog, appeared before the group. They all immediately recognized the beast as the Carbon Dog. The dog then emitted a piercing howl. The battle for the seventh Sanctuary had now begun.

The Carbon Dog began the fight by shooting out a spray of fire from his mouth. Ness immediately raised a Shield Omega over the party in order to reflect the attack back at the Carbon Dog. The spray of fire washed over the shield and was immediately reflected back at the Carbon Dog. However, the reflected fire inflicted little to no damage to the Carbon Dog, due to him being a fire-based creature. Paula took a quick scan of the dog and called out, "Everyone, he has no shield up at the time, but he has some new attacks, particularly the ability to use PSI Fire!" Ness and the others nodded, acknowledging her. The group then retaliated against the dog by using their strongest psychic attacks. They wanted to take down the Carbon Dog as quickly as possible before the Carbon Dog could use any of his PSI Fire attacks, since Ness's Shield Omega did not protect them against psychic attacks. Ness powered a ball of PSI Rockin Omega in his hand, while Paula powered a snowflake of PSI Freeze Omega, Poo powered a snowflake of PSI Freeze Gamma, and Jeff readied a Multi Bottle Rocket. During this time, the Carbon Dog steeled himself against the attacks that would be unleashed upon him. The first attack to strike was Ness's PSI Rockin Omega. The ball of scarlet psychic energy quickly crossed the distance between the humans and the monstrous fiery dog and struck him. Upon striking the dog, the globe of psychic energy expanded and engulfed him. The dog did not yelp or cry out in pain, as other enemies would have, though. He withstood the attack with dignity, even though the massively powerful psychic attack did inflict noticeable damage on him. Ness's Rockin was quickly followed by the two PSI Freeze attacks launched by Paula and Poo. Paula's stronger PSI Freeze Omega struck the Carbon Dog and detonated in a shower of snowflakes and ice. The explosion encased the dog in a block of ice, with Poo's PSI Freeze attack only inflicted more damage onto the dog. Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket was merely icing on the cake. The massively powerful warheads of the Multi Bottle Rocket, each powerful enough to destroy a modern tank, struck the dog's frozen form and detonated, engulfing the dog in massive explosions. Jeff let out a cheer in celebration with each hit, even though he knew that the fight was far from over. While, indeed, the fight was far from over, the Carbon Dog was still contained inside the block of ice. This gave the group more time to attack. Not wanting to waste any more psychic energy, Ness, Paula, and Poo charged in and used their bat, frying pan, and katana to strike at the stricken Carbon Dog. Each strike managed to inflict damage to the Carbon Dog, but the attacks were still not able to inflict enough damage to cause the Carbon Dog to transform into the Diamond Dog. Just as the group was about to unleash another flurry of attacks on the dog, the ice shattered and the Carbon Dog broke free. The Carbon Dog thrashed about, realizing that his attacks were only being rebounded back at him. Still, he attacked anyway in the hopes of collapsing the heroes' shield. To that effect, he zeroed in on Paula, who was closest to him, and bit down hard. The attack was so powerful that it managed to collapse the shield in one bite and still inflict damage onto Paula. The bite would have bitten her in half had Ness not immediately used Lifeup on her to save her and greatly limit the damage. As it was, though, the attack merely broke the skin. Paula gave a cry of pain as the dog bit her. Blood leaked from the bite marks on her chest and back, but she was not fatally injured by the bite. Ness used Lifeup again to heal the rest of the damage to Paula's body and soon, she was as good as new. The dog opened up to bite Paula again, but this time she was quick enough to dodge his attack.

Meanwhile, Jeff had opened fire on the dog from long range with his Gaia Beam pistol, and Poo was hacking and slashing at the dog in order to get him to focus on him, rather than Paula or Ness. The dog was thrashing about, biting and snarling at his attackers, trying to kill them. The Carbon Dog managed to get a hold of Poo and bit down on his arm. Poo suppressed a cry as he electrified his body in an attempt to get the Carbon Dog to release him. The Carbon Dog reflexively let Poo go as he was shocked by Poo's countermove. Poo used Lifeup to heal the damage to his arm. Ness then gave a whistle. Everyone turned to Ness and saw that he was holding a Super Bomb. The others quickly fled from the Carbon Dog, who turned towards the sound of the whistle. His flames bristled upon seeing Ness. Once his friends were a safe distance away, Ness tossed the Super Bomb at the Carbon Dog. The bomb flew through the air and quickly bounced along the ground towards the dog. The bomb then detonated, spraying the Carbon Dog with shrapnel. The concussion also struck the dog, inflicting damage as well. Ness's Super Bomb was the last straw for the Carbon Dog. After its detonation assaulted him with fire, shrapnel, and a concussion wave, the Carbon Dog immediately transformed into the Diamond Dog. His flaming fur immediately was extinguished and his skin hardened until it was literally as hard as diamond. The skin of the dog then became clear, shiny, and hard, just like diamonds. The dog looked as if he were practically made of diamond. The real battle was about to begin again.

The first move was Jeff's. Jeff had targeted the Diamond Dog with his Gaia Beam pistol and opened fire on the dog, as well as using a Multi Bottle Rocket to attack. Unfortunately, the dog was now protected by a Shield Beta, a fact that Paula was quick to point out by calling, "Wait, the Diamond Dog is protected by…" but she could not finish before Jeff fired the rocket and the beams at the Diamond Dog. Jeff was not ready for the reflection of his attacks. As his attacks were bounced back at him, he suffered the effects of his Gaia Beam pistol's bolts. The armor plates worn underneath his Kevlar B t-shirt, as well as his Kevlar B t-shirt managed to protect Jeff from the full effects of his Gaia Beam pistol's energy blasts, but some of the energy still managed to burn through the armor and inflict damage to Jeff. To make matters worse, the burned armor inflicted more burns to Jeff's skin as well. He cried out in pain as he was struck by his own attacks. Ness used Lifeup Beta on him in an attempt to heal him, but soon, the party realized that it would do little good, since Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket warheads were being rebounded off of the Diamond Dog and about to strike Jeff. Poo tried to raise a Shield Sigma over Jeff and the party, but he was too late. The warheads of the Multi Bottle Rocket struck Jeff, and everywhere around him, and detonated. The explosions sent up clouds of dirt, debris, and shrapnel. The attack would have instantly blown Jeff apart had it not been for the memento that Oberon had given him. The memento negated all of the damage and completely healed Jeff in the process. The memento then disappeared, but its job had been done. Jeff had been saved from his own reflected attack. Unfortunately, Poo had also suffered damage from the attack when trying to erect the shield and protect Jeff. One of the rockets had landed close to his feet and its detonation had sent him flying, as well as pelting him with shrapnel. Still, the damage done to Poo was minimal. Poo quickly got back up and entered the fight once more.

By now, the Diamond Dog had decided to do his best to end this fight as quickly as possible. To that end, he unleashed a glorious flash of light, a telltale sign of PSI Flash Omega, upon the party. The psychic attack had disappointing results, though, since each of the party was protected against Flash attacks. The Diamond Dog was not out of options yet, though. He had noticed that none of the shield using psychics had raised a shield or psychic shield over the party. He decided to make them pay for that mistake by charging Poo. Poo saw the dog approaching and he jumped over the Diamond Dog's lunge. Paula and Poo then launched PSI Thunder attacks in retaliation against the dog. They unleashed powerful streams of lightning against the dog and lightning arced around its body, but inflicted minimal visible damage to the Diamond Dog. Still, despite the limited damage inflicted on the Diamond Dog, the PSI Thunder attacks had done their job. The Shield Beta that had reflected their physical attacks was now down. They were free to attack at will. The Diamond Dog then decided to give the party the gift of diamonds in the form of Poo. He charged Poo and bit down hard on Poo, breaking his skin. Poo quickly realized that something bad was happening as his blood was quickly becoming diamond. The diamondization quickly spread from his wound and soon, his entire body was transformed into diamond.

Ness quickly used PSI Healing Gamma in order to cure Poo, but this also kept him from raising a shield over the rest of the party. Still, the Diamond Dog attacked Poo once more, this time spewing out a fireball. The fireball struck Poo directly, and given his already injured state from suffering the physical damage from the biting attack he had sustained earlier, the massively powerful fireball would have been fatal, incinerating his body in its entirety, had it not been for the Faerie's memento that he had received from Oberon and Titania. The memento instantly revitalized him, restoring him to full health in the process, and then disappeared. Poo rose and quickly backed away from the dog. He, and the rest of the party knew that their best chance now was to use their most powerful attacks on the Diamond Dog and hope that they managed to take him down before the dog could attack again. For an instant, Ness looked back at Giygas, who looked to be in deep concentration, as if he was protecting the party from unseen psychic assaults. All Ness knew, though, was that they could definitely have used Giygas's help right now against the Diamond Dog. They were quickly using up their remaining psychic energy. If they did not end this battle soon, they would be restricted to using physical attacks to defeat the Diamond Dog.

Ness was the first to act. He raised a Shield Omega over the party. He knew about the Diamond Dog's ability to utilize PSI Fire, even at its Omega form, but he also knew that the dog's most dangerous attack at the moment was his hard bite that could diamondize them. Next, Paula powered another snowflake of PSI Freeze and unleashed it at the Diamond Dog. The snowflake of psychic energy struck the Diamond Dog and exploded, showering the dog with snowflakes of psychic energy. Despite the power of the attack, though, the Diamond Dog suffered less damage than other enemies would have. It seemed to be resilient to Freeze attacks. Poo quickly decided to test out his Starstorm Omega on the Diamond Dog. As he was forming the dozens of blue orbs of energy around him, though, Jeff unleashed another Multi Bottle Rocket at the Diamond Dog. The warheads of the rocket streaked towards the Diamond Dog, leaving trails of smoke in their wake. Each warhead struck the Diamond Dog head on and detonated, showering the dog with shrapnel and fire. Smoke from the blast cloud covered the Diamond Dog and Poo had to use his psychic senses to keep track of the dog in the blast cloud. Once the cloud cleared, the group was able to appraise the damage dealt by Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket. The diamond skin of the dog showed some cracks and blackened soot marks also covered the dog, but other than that, he was still in pretty good shape. Still, the Multi Bottle Rocket had inflicted more damage than the PSI Freeze or the two PSI Thunder attacks combined. Now it was Poo's turn to attack. He shoved his arms forward and the stars that had formed around him were launched right at the Diamond Dog. The dog gave a snarl as the stars impacted the diamond skin of the dog. Each impact produced a large explosion, at least ten meters in diameter, engulfing the dog. The Diamond Dog suffered dozens of hits from the stars, but it still was not enough, as was evidenced by the Diamond Dog launching a stream of PSI Fire at the teens.

Ness had quickly jumped out in front of Jeff in order to absorb the blow for his friend, knowing that Jeff would not survive against such an attack, and already having used his memento to survive his own reflected Multi Bottle Rocket. Ness grunted and groaned as the flames closed in. His own telekinesis was barely enough to keep the flames at bay, and even with that and the defense that his Star Pendant provided, his hands were beginning to blister. He looked over at Paula and Poo, who were handling the flames a little better. Poo was showing little signs of stress, being an energy manipulator and also having the protective effects of his Diadem of Kings. Paula was also handling the flames, due to her own ability to utilize psychic fire, as having her defenses augmented by her Star Pendant, and had managed raise a PSI Shield Omega over herself and the party, so the remaining flames from the Diamond Dog's attack were now reflected back at him. After the smoke from Poo's Starstorm Omega and the reflected flames cleared, the party could see that the Diamond Dog was beginning to look more ragged. Still, the Diamond Dog had emerged from the assault still breathing, and he seemed to be grinning. Now that the group had raised a psychic shield, he was free to utilize his normal attacks once more. Not only that, but the humans had used up most of their psychic energy during the previous battles as well as during the battle they were currently engaged in. Ness looked over at Giygas and called out indignantly, "Hey Giygas, we could use some help here!"

Giygas opened one of his eyes and glanced over at Ness. "You'll have to handle the Dog on your own," he told the party. "I'm trying to block out psychic assaults from a group of Starmen that have located us."

Ness had difficulty believing that a group of Starmen, whatever their ranks, could be any trouble for Giygas, even if he did not want to kill them while fending them off. Still, if Giygas was unable, or unwilling, to enter the fight, they would have to handle the Diamond Dog on their own. Ness decided that now was a good time to replenish some of his psychic energy with a Magic Truffle. He drew out the truffle, devoured it, and felt his psychic energy rising once more. Now he had more than enough energy to perform a PSI Rockin Omega. The other psychics also ate a Magic Truffle of their own so that they could use their most powerful psychic attacks. All the while, the Diamond Dog unleashed another stream of fire at them. This stream was not psychic, so Poo immediately raised a Shield Omega over the party before the stream of fire reached them. The stream of fire struck the shield, causing it to flare a deep orange for a second, before reflecting the fire back at the Diamond Dog. While the flames inflicted only minimal damage to the dog, the damage was beginning to mount. However, during this brief lull, the human psychics and Jeff were preparing their strongest psychic attacks and strongest weapons.

Ness powered a ball of PSI Rockin in his right hand, while water surrounded Paula as she prepared to use PSI Torrent at its Omega level. Jeff placed a Multi Bottle Rocket on the ground and prepared to launch it at the Diamond Dog, while Poo powered another PSI Starstorm Omega barrage. The Diamond Dog took one look at the assault the forces were preparing to launch and he decided that it would be best to use his own strongest attack, PSI Fire Omega and launch it at the humans. He opened his mouth and emitted a piercing howl before unleashing a torrent of flame at the party. It was then that the party unleashed their own attacks on the Diamond Dog. The crashing tidal wave of Paula's PSI Torrent Omega was more than strong enough to overpower the Diamond Dog's PSI Fire Omega, having the elemental advantage, and strike at the dog. Despite the force of the tidal wave, though, the dog stood firm in the face of the torrent of psychic water and did not budge an inch. Next came Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket, which showered the dog with multiple warheads, each of which scored direct hits on the dog and exploded, damaging the diamond skin of the dog. Finally, the two strongest attacks struck. Ness's ball of PSI Rockin Omega struck the Diamond Dog and engulfed it in a red globe of psychic energy. This was in addition to the dozens of stars from Poo's Starstorm Omega that struck the Diamond Dog. As the sphere of Ness's PSI Rockin expanded, the party had to retreat a bit so that they would not be caught in its field. After the field of energy dissipated, a crater over three hundred meters in diameter remained, with the Diamond Dog standing in the middle.

The Diamond Dog was wobbling, struggling to remain standing, and breathing heavily. The eyes of the party went wide at the fact that the Diamond Dog was still alive after that vicious assault. Truly, the Diamond Dog was a lot stronger now than he had been during their last adventure. Still, the Diamond Dog was not beaten yet. The Diamond Dog attempted to move forward, but it fell to the ground, struggling to rise, letting out a series of pained whimpers. The dog attempted to rise to face the heroes as they approached the once magnificent beast. Where once the dog's body had been pristine diamond, now it was a cracked mess of jagged and even melted edges on the dog's ears and tail. Pieces of diamond littered the ground around the beast. Cuts, burns, and soot marks also lined the Diamond Dog's body as he struggled to move forward and face down his foes. He managed to take one step before falling to the ground again. Paula and Poo could sense that this was the end. The Diamond Dog's body was giving out on him. With one last piercing howl as it attempted to rise, the Diamond Dog fell to the ground once more and the diamond skin of the dog cracked and fell off of the body, falling to the floor, revealing the truth about the Diamond Dog. The Diamond Dog was defeated, and in his place was a big, strong, brown Doberman pinscher.

Paula took a quick scan of the dog's mind in order to see if the dog was still being controlled by the PSI Aliens. She sensed no external forces controlling the dog's mind. The dog, sensing that Paula and the others were no longer hostile let the group come over to him and pet him. "Don't worry. It's all over now," Ness told the dog in a comforting, but also assertive tone, since he knew that the dog respected not only kindness, but also strength. Ness could sense that the dog was owned by someone on the island and was eager to get back home. Ness and Jeff took care of the dog while Paula and Poo headed towards the Sanctuary. Giygas quickly followed after Paula. Ness's eyes narrowed in harshly on Giygas, who had been of no help during the battle at all. He was not the only one who was focusing on the alien, though. The Doberman's eyes also followed Giygas, and he gave a low growl at the sight of the alien, another something that Ness was quick to notice. Now Ness was really beginning to get suspicious of Giygas once again. There was no way that he believed that Giygas could have trouble against Starmen in a psychic battle. And he knew that dogs could often sense the true intentions of others. And the fact that this dog had taken to him and his friends so quickly while he was definitely unfriendly towards Giygas was something that Ness could not ignore. A quick look into the dog's mind confirmed that the dog viewed Giygas as untrustworthy and likely an enemy, especially since it was Giygas's power that had transformed the dog into the Carbon/Diamond Dog and made him a Sanctuary Guardian. Ness was now getting even more suspicious of Giygas, since in his experience, dogs tended to have a good sense about such things, and the dog was still suspicious of him.

Over at the swirl of energy, Paula, Poo, and Giygas approached the white swirl of energy. When they arrived they wasted no time entering the swirl. Once they stepped into the swirl, they heard the seventh part of the Eight Melodies song play in their minds. Once the melody was finished, a memory came flooding into their minds. For Giygas, it was the first time he had been ordered to fire on a planet full of sentient lifeforms. He was six years old at the time. Giygas had refused, which only earned him the wrath of his father, as well as a laugh from his baby brother, who was no older than two. He remembered looking over at his mother, Maria, and seeing her smile softly, while his father had only scowled at the woman. Giygas also noticed something that had seemingly escaped his notice before. Lightning was crackling in his father's hands. He seemed like he was about to use it, but Giygas saw himself walk over to his mother and hug her, something which caused the bridge crew members to turn away, as if his show of love for Maria was something that was taboo in his people's society. Giygas's father, however, had only stared at the two of them with nothing but rage and disappointment on his face. Still, he powered down the lightning and proceeded to harshly dismiss the woman and take Giygas away in private where Giygas was reamed for his actions.

For Paula, it was when she was at the playground and she had overheard an argument going on during a Cops and Robbers game when she was only seven years old. One of the children had claimed the other cheated, while the other child had denied it. While the child's mouth and voice had denied it, she heard something clearly different in the boy's mind. Paula then heard herself blurt out, "He's lying!" That had only earned her some very unfriendly stares from the other boys, save the accuser. It had turned out that she was actually right, but the others had accused her of lying instead, something that she had not taken well as when one of the children went to confront her for defending the accuser, she simply walked away and when he tried to grab her, he was shocked and thrown back several feet to the ground. It was there that the memory ended. It was a painful time for Paula. That was the time she was revealed to some of the people of Twoson as a psychic. She had later become quite famous, though it was fame that she had never wanted.

As for Poo, his memory was during a training session of his when Poo was eight. He was sparring against his Master when his master had managed to land a punch on Poo and surprise him. However, his Master had been surprised instead since Poo's body was electrified. The shock had thrown his Master across the room, where he landed in a heap. The young Poo went over to check on his Master, but when he arrived, his Master was already beginning to rise. That was the day that he began the next level of his psychic training and combining it with his martial arts. Paula, Poo, and Giygas then heard another part of the Eight Melodies, "…_love grows strong now_…"

Once the memories had ended, the swirl of energy vanished and they were standing inside the volcano once more. The party headed back down to Ness and Jeff, who were taking care of the Doberman pinscher that had once been the Carbon Dog/Diamond Dog. The party then headed back the way they had come. The few Soul Consuming Flames that had remained fled at the very sight of Ness and the others, knowing that they were no match for them. Once the party reached the entrance, they were greeted by the rescued Psychic Psychos as well as family members that had come in search for the Psychic Psychos, and the dog. The Doberman rushed over to his master, who came over to the dog, knelt down and pet him. The man, a Hawaiian man that was about thirty years old took a look at the party and went over to them, thanking the party for helping his friend and his dog. He handed Ness a Cup of Lifenoodles as a reward for helping him. The others were given other useful gifts and items that they knew would help them on their adventure. After saying their goodbyes and wishing the people of the island luck, Ness and the others went back to the Sky Runner II. Jeff whipped out his remote and the boarding ramp lowered to allow them entrance. The party boarded the craft and once they were all aboard, the ramp closed behind them.

Onboard the Sky Runner II, Jeff quickly took the pilot's chair while Ness and the other humans went over to other stations. "Okay, seven down, one to go," Paula said cheerfully.

"Next stop, the moon," Giygas said.

"Actually, next stop, Saturn Valley," Jeff corrected. This brought a glare from Giygas.

"We need to get to the moon before the moon base makes preparations for our coming," Giygas insisted.

"No, we need to rest and rearm ourselves," Jeff countered. "We used up a lot of ammunition and energy in that volcano, and that was supposed to be the calm before the storm. We have to get to Saturn Valley to rearm. Then we can head off to the moon and claim that final Sanctuary."

The others nodded in agreement. Seeing that he was going to be overruled by the others, Giygas acquiesced to Jeff's wishes and said, "Fine, Saturn Valley it is." With that, the Sky Runner II rose into the sky. Once it was high enough in the sky to evade the mountaintops of the Hawaiian Islands, the Sky Runner II rocketed off towards Saturn Valley.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16:

The Sky Runner II took off for Saturn Valley at its top cruising speed. This would give the others some time to rest and think about the recent trip into Lava Mountain. Jeff glanced at the scanners and found that the volcano was now dormant once more. Jeff figured the presence of the PSI Alien controlled troops and the Carbon/Diamond Dog must have been what reactivated the volcano. Without them, the volcano would simply quiet down once more. Jeff then peered away from the scanners and focused on getting back to Saturn Valley. That would give the group more time to rest before making their journey to the moon. As much as Jeff may have wanted to get underway as soon as they were finished rearming and resupplying, he knew that he and the others needed to rest for a bit. Sleeping on a cramped flying saucer was not the same as sleeping in a real bed or having a real breakfast. Jeff looked back at the others and told them, "I can handle my duties out here for a bit. You all should go back and get some rest, just in case we run into trouble when we get back to Saturn Valley."

Giygas immediately went back into the main cabin. Ness followed him back into the main cabin while Paula and Poo remained at their posts.

Inside the main cabin, Giygas was sitting on the floor, waiting for Ness to enter. He had suspected that Ness was suspicious of his activities, or lack thereof, during the trip through Lava Mountain. Sure enough, the door slid open and Ness walked through the opening. The door slid closed and Ness said, "Lock," in a cold voice. A click sounded behind him, signifying that the door was now locked. Giygas's looked up at the thirteen year-old boy. His eyes met the young teen's and he could see the hostility and suspicion inside of Ness. Ness made no attempt to hide the fact that he was quite close to his breaking point and that he could easily start a fight against Giygas. Giygas asked sarcastically, "To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"You owe me, or rather, _us_, an explanation," Ness said in the same cold voice, but his voice was now much harder. "The others might not have the guts to call you on this, but I do. I know that you were involved in the kidnappings of several of the children we rescued in the Faerie World. After I rescued some of the children, they told me about the fact that you kidnapped them."

Giygas gazed upon Ness, but his confident and even sarcastic expression did not waver. "Of course I helped kidnap some of those children. That was years ago, and I was leading the invasion force at that time. I don't see why you're so upset with me about that."

Ness merely scowled and continued, "That wasn't all. One of the children told me that you had a heated discussion with Maria about the path you were taking. Those things, alone, would not cause me to get too suspicious. However, the fact that you basically just watched our fights in Lava Mountain and did nothing to help us against the Carbon Dog and the Diamond Dog; does. I want to know now, where do your loyalties really lie?"

At that, Giygas rose and slowly approached Ness, staring into his eyes. Ness, for his part did not back down one inch. If anything, he advanced on Giygas as well. "Are you accusing me of betraying you or planning to do so?" Giygas asked angrily in a low voice.

"Are you?" came Ness's response.

The eyes of the two psychics met again, each one appraising the other, neither of them backing down. Ness knew that his powers had increased during their adventure and he was confident that if it came to a fight, that he and the others could defeat Giygas. Giygas, of course, was also equally confident that if Ness attacked him, and the others joined in on the fight, that he would win as well.

"You don't want to make an enemy of me," Giygas warned. "Our last fight should have shown you that."

"And I want to know that you aren't already an enemy," Ness countered. "What were you and Maria arguing about? What was this 'path' that you're going on that Maria doesn't want you to travel down?"

This question took Giygas aback. _How had Ness learned the subject of my argument with Maria_? he wondered. "How did you learn of that?" he growled in question.

"I already told you, one of the children heard you talking to Maria and told me what was said," Ness replied. "Now, once again. What were you arguing with her about?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because of what the child said, and the fact that you did nothing to help us against the Carbon Dog and Diamond Dog."

"I was resisting a mental attack by an army of Starmen during that battle," Giygas responded harshly. This almost prompted Ness to laugh. Instead, his expression hardened even more.

"A bunch of Starmen gave you trouble?" Ness asked in disbelief. "You, who disabled the powers of over three hundred Starmen, along with who knows how many Starmen onboard the City Smasher during the Massacre in New York? You're telling me that a group of Starmen gave you trouble in a telepathic battle?"

"Yes," Giygas answered abashedly. "These Starmen were of high rank, Starman Warriors, Deluxes, and Final Starmen. These are much different from normal Starmen and Starman Supers, which were the majority of the forces that were present in New York at the time. These Starmen had had the failsafe programs removed from their minds, probably due to what I did to the Starmen in New York. After all, the only reason I had such an easy time there was because I was using my own people's codes against the Starmen."

Ness did not know whether or not to believe what Giygas had told them. Giygas had told them earlier about the failsafe codes in the minds of the Starmen should they rebel against the PSI Aliens. And it made sense that Giygas's people would either remove or change them so that Giygas could not use them to disable any more Starmen, but it could also be an easy to craft lie as well. After all, there were not all that many Starmen left on Earth, and there had been no reports of Starman survivors from the destruction of the fleet coming down to attack the Earth.

The two were interrupted when the door to the cockpit slid open and Paula was standing in the doorway. "Who locked the door?" she asked, her voice demonstrating her annoyance.

"I did," Ness replied sheepishly.

Paula gave only a quick glance over to him and she then noticed Giygas standing close to him and she gave an audible sigh. "What is it this time?" she almost complained angrily.

"We were having a simple discussion," Giygas answered evasively. Paula was not buying it, but she was now focusing her attention onto Ness.

"Are you _still_ suspicious of Giygas after everything he has done to help us?" she asked in a perturbed voice.

"I don't know right now," Ness eventually responded. "I used to think no, but now, with what the child we rescued from the Faeries said and Giygas's seeming lack of support during the battle against the Carbon Dog and the Diamond Dog, I'm not sure anymore."

It was then that Giygas chimed in. "He had a legitimate reason to be concerned. My lack of action could definitely have been construed as a betrayal, especially since the Diamond Dog gave you so much trouble."

"Nevertheless, I'm currently satisfied with Giygas's answers," Ness interrupted, trying to stop this line of discussion before it went any farther. The last thing he wanted was to have another argument with Paula over where Giygas's loyalties lie. "I may have just been worrying a little too much."

Paula gave him a questioning smile. She knew that Ness was trying to avoid having to answer Paula's questions. But if both Ness and Giygas stated that they were patching things up, she'd let it go for now. She would still keep an eye on both of them, though. She did not want any of these arguments to affect the team's ability to function as a unit. Giygas soon rose and proceeded to leave the main cabin so that Ness and Paula could be alone. After he had left, Paula went over to one of the pallets and sat down. Ness followed suit and after he was seated, she asked, "Do you really think that Giygas could actually be working for the PSI Aliens after everything he's done for us?"

Ness shook his head. "I don't know right now. I just don't. Ask me before the trip to the Faerie World and I would have given an unconditional 'no'. But now, I just can't say that right now. Still, I won't let this affect the team dynamic. I'll just be ready should the worst happen."

"That's all we can do right now," Paula said kindly. "Oh, and sorry if I was acting like a jerk when I was questioning you before," she apologized.

"Don't worry about it," Ness replied. "I may have jumped the gun a bit confronting Giygas before talking to the rest of you."

"Maybe," Paula shrugged.

Ness and Paula then stared into each other's eyes and gradually began to move closer to each other. They soon realized that they were holding each other's hands. They both gave a child-like smile and Paula began to giggle. They soon moved their faces closer to the others when Jeff's voice blared out over the comm, "Everyone report to the bridge at once! Something's happening!"

The blaring of Jeff's voice over the comm shattered their romantic moment, which caused Paula to seethe, "Again. I'm going to get him, somehow, someway. I'm going to get him."

Ness merely gave a kind smile, saying nothing, and rose to head out to the cockpit. Paula followed close behind. Once they were out in the cockpit, Jeff turned and told them, "We've got a problem."

"What sort of problem?" Ness asked.

"I just detected over a dozen UFOs fly by close to us within weapons range," he answered. "But they didn't open fire on us. They just zoomed by, making a beeline straight for Saturn Valley."

"They're attacking Saturn Valley," Giygas said calmly from the rearmost station in the cockpit bridge. "These are forces from the main fleet. These fighters must have jumped to Earth from the main fleet to launch this attack, since they must know that most of the advanced technology we're using is coming from Saturn Valley. There are undoubtedly more enemy ships attacking the valley as we speak."

"We can't let them kill the Mr. Saturns," Paula blurted out, fearful for the safety of the creatures.

"I would not worry too much yet," Giygas said calmly. "The defenses of Saturn Valley are formidable. They can likely hold out for quite a while."

"Let's not take any chances," Jeff exclaimed. "Everyone strap in and hold on!"

The Chosen Four activated the straps on their seats and Jeff then kicked the Sky Runner II into high gear. The craft leapt forward even faster than before, which threw Jeff and Poo back into their seats while Ness and Paula were thrown to their side, the restraints keeping them from falling out of their chairs. The Sky Runner II proceeded to rocket after the dozen or so UFOs in order to intercept them before they reached Saturn Valley to reinforce whatever enemy forces were currently attacking the valley.

It only took a few minutes for the Sky Runner II to catch up to the Fighter UFOs at maximum safe speed. Jeff's eyes were glued to the sensor screens as the dozen blips appeared in front of him. He knew that they were not too far from Saturn Valley and the valley would be reached in about half an hour. Jeff remained out of the UFOs' weapons range, however, he made sure that the UFOs were within range of _his_ weapons. Jeff glanced over at Paula and Poo and said, "Charge up the quad energy cannons and target the closest UFO." He hoped that if he took out the rearmost alien fighter craft, that it would take longer for the other UFOs to respond, or care that they were getting shot down. That would result in him having to use fewer missiles to take down the remaining UFOs. Joysticks emerged from the consoles at Ness and Paula's stations and crosshairs appeared on their consoles. The images of the UFOs soon flashed up onto the screens. Jeff positioned the Sky Runner so that they squadron of UFOs would appear in the money lane, the area where the fields of fire of the two cannons overlapped. Both Ness and Paula's crosshairs zeroed in on a UFO and when the tone became solid, they pulled the trigger.

Quartets of energy blasts lanced out from the cannons, each quartet targeting a different UFO. The Fighter UFOs that were rocketing towards Saturn Valley either did not have their deflector shields up, or were not equipped with shields at all, since the energy bolts struck the hulls of the UFOs unimpeded and blew them apart. Ness and Paula quickly found two more targets and proceeded to open fire on them. Two more volleys of laser lances reached out from the energy cannons and tagged two more UFOs. In merely a few seconds of fighting, Ness and Paula had taken down four UFOs. Another volley of laser fire shattered a fifth UFO, while a sixth UFO managed to maneuver out of the way of the energy cannons. His cohort in front of him, however, was slow to respond and as a result, was raked by energy blasts. One blast left a deep furrow in the hull of the craft, while a second blast managed to strike the craft head on. The second blast gouged a hole in the engines and the craft began to list downwards. The UFO continued its uncontrolled descent until it struck the ground below, exploding upon impact. Six enemies were down, with six remaining. Ness and Paula raked the fleeing squadron with laser fire, but only managed to shoot down one more UFO before the UFOs had completed their turn and began flying straight towards the Sky Runner II. Jeff saw the craft coming at him and grinned. He quickly activated the craft's shields and watched the HUD as the five remaining UFOs approached. If Ness and Paula were good enough, they could take down the entire squadron without having to use any missiles at all. _These pilots must be either suicidal, or just plain stupid_, Jeff mused.

The UFOs quickly came into visual range while Ness and Paula continued to fire at the speedy enemy fighter craft. A laser blast managed to tag a UFO in the rear quarter of the ship. Smoke trailed the UFO and it did not maneuver along with the rest of the squadron. It merely continued on, beginning to list downward. It eventually crashed into the ground and exploded. Only four UFOs remained. The remaining four, however, proved to be tougher targets, since these targets shot back. Green energy pulses erupted from the belly cannons of the UFOs, spraying energy fire towards the Sky Runner II. Jeff used the Sky Runner II's maneuverability to dodge the incoming energy fire, only suffering one hit to the shields from a UFO that flew by the Sky Runner II only a few feet above it. Ness, who manned the dorsal quad energy cannon, fired a volley of energy fire at the UFO when it was at point blank range. The first scarlet lance of energy splashed against the UFO's shields. Apparently, this UFO was equipped with shields, something the others seemed to lack. However, its shields were not all that strong as the second energy blast collapsed the shields and left a deep scar on the armor. The third energy blast blew a hole into the hull of the craft, smoke and metallic debris leaking from the now stricken craft. The fourth blast burned a hole in the center of the craft, going through the engines and out the cockpit on top of the UFO, vaporizing the pilot of the craft in the process. The now crewless craft fell from the sky and was torn apart upon impacting the ground below.

Another UFO had flown underneath the Sky Runner II, but before it could roll to raise its cannon to the Sky Runner II, Paula blew the ship apart with a volley of energy fire. That left only two UFOs remaining. The UFOs came around for another attack, but were in the clear lines of fire of the GAU-8 Avenger cannons. Jeff and Poo let fly with the cannons and soft drink can sized slugs of depleted uranium tore through the unshielded hulls of the remaining UFOs. The two UFOs spiraled downwards to their deaths and crashed among the rocks below. Once the battle was over, the Sky Runner II continued on its way to Saturn Valley.

After about a half hour, they were on their final approach to Saturn Valley. As they were beginning to slow down for their approach to the valley, Giygas spoke ominously, "They're here."

Jeff quickly checked the long-range sensors and found that Saturn Valley was surrounded by countless small blips, which obviously represented Fighter UFOs. However, he also spotted several larger blips as well, which were likely either Assault UFOs or Transport UFOs. A red light flashed near the radio and an alarm blared. Jeff pressed the button and activated the radio. The sounds of gunfire and energy fire came in through the radio. Soon, the voice of a Mr. Saturn squeaked through, "Help! We're under big attack! _Zap_! We fight back, but not enough! Enemy's bigger! We need help!"

Jeff then called through on the radio, "Hold on guys, we're on our way." He then shut down the radio and turned back to Giygas and asked, "Giygas, can you identify how many enemy craft there are and what kind?"

Giygas gave a grin. "Certainly," he responded. Giygas closed his eyes and proceeded to scan the area ahead of him. He had a good feeling that the fact that a dozen Fighter UFOs were going to join the assault indicated that the Mr. Saturns were holding their own for the moment. His surmising was correct, as he sensed the trepidation of several Fighter UFO pilots as a wave of surface-to-air missiles struck a Transport UFO and its quartet of escorts, taking down the transport and the four Fighter UFOs along with the troops that were still onboard the transports. Still, he counted dozens of UFOs flying through the air. The Mr. Saturns, however, were not defenseless in the air, since they launched a series of drone fighters and even a few piloted Mr. Saturn shaped ships as well, which were holding their own against the vastly superior numbers of Fighter UFOs. So far, actual casualties for the Mr. Saturns were light. No one had died, yet, but the wreckage of several drone warriors and soldiers were strewn across the valley. Several emplacement weapons were nothing more than melted slag as well, though those weapons had been automated. Giygas then sensed the presence of a large number of Mooks and other enemies, particularly Light Elves and even a few High Star Elves. The largest problem, though, was the fact that there were a number of Starmen present as well; not only Starmen, but Starman Warriors and even a couple Starman Deluxes. He quickly tried to use the failsafe mental program to disable their abilities. He did not think that it would work, but he gave it a try anyway. Sure enough, the attempt was unsuccessful. His brother was actually smart enough to either change the code or eliminate it entirely. The Starmen were not the greatest threat to the valley, though. He sensed from one of the minds of the Mooks that there was a City Smasher making its way towards the valley. This would be a much more difficult enemy to overcome. While Ness and the others had dealt with City Smashers before, this time, they were up against the clock, since the massive ship was already close to Saturn Valley.

"Jeff, we'd better rocket to Saturn Valley on the double," Giygas warned. "There's a City Smasher headed there. My brother must know of the resistance there so he sent one ahead to deal with the valley and the weapons and technology there."

Jeff wasted no time accelerating towards the valley. After a few minutes, the group could see the valley in the distance, and the City Smasher ship floating towards the city. "Everyone man your battle stations," Jeff called. "We're about to go into the fire!"

The Sky Runner rocketed towards Saturn Valley, and soon, a three dimensional holographic display of the battlefield appeared on the dashboard. There were several Starman Deluxes and Warriors, as well as a couple Ghosts of Starman as well. Surrounding the valley, hurling artillery into the valley were a group of R7038XXs, purple R7039s, and a couple of Madnug mechs. None of those weapons or troops came as a surprise for the teens. The surprise was the fact that there were robots similar to the Nancys, Kellys, and Juanas that they had faced earlier also attacking the Mr. Saturns. The Nancys, Kellys, and Juanas were not all that effective in combat compared to the recent generation of Starmen that had come onto the scene. Even the previous generation of Starmen, the ones fought during the War Against Giygas, were noticeably superior to the Nancys, Kellys, and Juanas.

"Damn," Giygas muttered. "They've finished construction on the first batch already?"

"The first batch of what?" Poo asked, looking at the holographic display as one of the new robots, a pink suit of armor with feminine features, was obliterated by the combined fire of two drone tanks and a Mr. Saturn somehow wielding a Double Beam cannon.

"Before I joined you, we had kidnapped a number of psychic children, the child you know as Kumatora being one of them, in order to test their psychic potential and calculate their potential strength, and the threat that they would pose to us," Giygas told them. "If they were strong enough to be of use, yet not strong enough to constitute a threat to us at the moment, which none of them were, we would plug them into a neural chamber which linked their minds to the droid brains of a new series of machines. These machines are referred to as Colins, Madelines, Abigails, Kevins, and Lukes; all named after the children that we had kidnapped." He let that information sink in before continuing, "These robots have the full range of psychic abilities demonstrated by human children, though at higher levels. The children also have no control over the robots. Only their psychic power and skills are transmitted to the robots. The robot you just saw get obliterated was a Madeline. This is, hopefully, the only batch of those robots that have been constructed. The next series will consist of robots named Dylan, Hannah, George, Meryl, David, and Kumatora. Many of these children are quite young, so they do not have the skills to resist the machines transmitting their power to the robots' semi-organic brains. Don't worry about the children should you destroy the robots, though. The damage to or destruction of a robot won't transmit back to the children. It's a one way signal."

That put the teens' minds at ease. Now they would not have to worry about going all out against the robots. The party soon arrived close to the valley. Before entering the valley, though, he wanted to deal with the R series of robots and the Madnugs that were shelling the valley. He took control of the rocket pods and armed the rockets. He targeted the two Madnugs first, since they were the largest and most heavily armed of the robots and, thus, the greatest threats. He zoomed towards the back of one of the massive mechs and opened fire with the rockets, with Ness and Paula adding energy fire from the quad energy cannons. The Madnugs had no rear weapons, so they could not defend themselves against rear attacks, something the first Madnug found out the hard way as the rockets struck its legs. The detonations of the rockets that struck the legs blew off large chunks of metal from the leg of the gigantic mech. As the Madnug tried to pivot and turn to face its attacker, the leg snapped off and the Madnug fell to the ground. A volley of energy fire from Paula's ventral energy cannon burned a series of holes in the command center of the mech, causing the command crew to duck for cover, with a couple of personnel not ducking fast enough and getting vaporized by the energy bolts in the process. Another raking of energy fire to the hands and chest of the mech made certain that its threat had been completely neutralized. During the first engagement, though, the other Madnug had not been idle and managed to get a bead on the Sky Runner II. Giygas sensed the mech crew's satisfaction at the sight and called out in warning, "Jeff, the other Madnug has a lock!"

"I gotcha," Jeff called out in response as he swiftly turned the Sky Runner II on its axis and faced down the Madnug. He fired a series of five rockets at the Madnug, targeting the command center and primary weapons ports of the beastly mech. The rockets leapt from the rocket pods and struck their targets head on. The primary weapons systems were instantly shattered and the command center of the mech exploded in a spectacular display of fireworks. The destabilization of the mech's footing caused the mech to lurch and fall over onto the ground, throwing up a cloud of dirt and grass. Paula then fired another volley of energy bolts into the mech, just to make sure that the fallen Madnug would never rise again. Jeff then approached the R7038XXs and the R7039s. These giant robots were far smaller than the massive Madnugs, and far weaker in both offense and defense as well. They were quite beatable with only single rocket hits. Jeff targeted each robot respectively and fired a single rocket at the robot. With each rocket fired, a robot fell to the ground, or went up in a magnificent cloud of shrapnel. One after the other, the R7038XXs and R7039s were destroyed. In less than a minute, the long-range artillery forces of the Starmen had been eliminated. Jeff then flew into the valley, noticing a shadow passing over the valley.

The teens looked out of the cockpit window and noticed the City Smasher taking up position at the center of the valley. The defensive weapon emplacements of the Mr. Saturns pointed upwards towards the city-sized saucer and opened fire, spewing forth laser and plasma blasts at the circular monstrosity. The laser and plasma blasts struck the shields of the ship, causing an opaque green field of energy to form where the energy blasts and missiles struck for a moment. The attacks, however inflicted no damage to the ship, or its shields, and the Mr. Saturns soon focused once more on beating back the enemy forces in the valley itself. Meanwhile, the hatches on the City Smasher opened and dozens of Fighter UFOs were disgorged from the four hatches hanging from the underside of the ship.

Jeff had the Sky Runner II dive towards the valley and activated his targeting systems as the hatches opened to release the City Smasher's compliment of fighters. Jeff locked onto ten of the craft and used up his remaining missiles to obliterate ten of the newly arriving Fighter UFOs. The missiles blew the ten UFOs apart with single hits, but now Jeff had no remaining long-range weapons that would be effective, and the ship likely had more Fighter UFOs. He tilted the bow of the craft downward and he and Paula sprinkled the Starmen and Mooks in the valley with gunfire and energy fire. Scarlet bolts of energy and slugs the size of soft drink cans falling among the troops, blowing apart and/or vaporizing Mooks, Starmen, robots, and other enemies. Jeff looked above and quickly saw more enemies being disgorged from the City Smasher. These were Octobots of various kinds as well as Sentry Robots. The anti-aircraft weapons of Saturn Valley unleashed a barrage of energy fire at the incoming enemy robots, destroying a great number of them before the others managed to land. Several energy blasts also struck the unshielded hull of the enemy ship while the hatches were open, but did nothing but create small, black burn marks on the armored hull.

Seeing the arrival of new enemies, and that the tank drones and Mr. Saturn defenders were being overwhelmed by the superior numbers of Starman forces, Ness went over to Jeff and asked, "Jeff, can you handle fighting the Fighter UFOs without us?"

"With the help of the Saturn ships that are fighting right now, possibly," Jeff answered hesitantly, turning back to his friend.

"Jeff, lower the shields," Ness told him. "I'm going in."

Paula and Poo also left their seats to join Ness. Giygas also got up and went over to Ness and the others. They wanted to take the fight to the enemy on the ground while Jeff and the few Saturn ships already in the sky defended the Saturn Valley against the remaining UFOs. Paula, Poo, and Giygas gathered around Ness and with a single flash, the quartet disappeared from the cockpit of the Sky Runner II. After Ness and the others left, Jeff raised the shields once more and went to engage the newly deployed Fighter UFOs.

The party reappeared in the center of the valley. Green and red energy bolts flying all around them, traveling in opposite directions. The group looked forward and saw a squadron of eight Starmen standing before them. The Starmen seemed surprised by the sudden arrival of Ness and the others and recoiled at their sudden appearance. This pause gave Ness and the others time to launch the first attack. Paula and Poo wasted no time powering PSI Thunder attacks and targeting the squadron of Starmen, anticipating that they had psychic shields up to protect against the party's psychic attacks. All the while, Giygas telepathically scanned the entirety of the Saturn Valley and identified all of the Starmen and their cohorts, as well as identifying what types of shields, if any, they had raised at the time. The Starmen in this squadron did, indeed, have PSI Shield Betas raised in order to counter psychic attacks. These shields, however, were useless against PSI Thunder, so when Paula and Poo unleashed their barrages of PSI Thunder Omega upon the Starmen, they had no real defense against it. Lightning bolts erupted from the fingertips of the two human teens and streaked towards the Starmen. Their psychic counter shields flared for an instant before the lightning phased through them and inflicted direct damage to the Starmen. The force of the lightning bolts threw the Starmen off their feet and sent them flying a few yards backwards, lightning arcing across their bodies. Muffled cries could be heard coming from the Starmen as they sailed through the air. They landed on the ground in heaps and writhed for a few moments before ceasing their movements, electricity still sparking across their bodies.

Meanwhile, Ness had found a group of over a dozen Greater Mooks and even some new Elite Mooks, which were rainbow colored Mooks. Giygas telepathically told him that the Elite Mooks had access to all elemental PSI and could utilize status-altering moves as well, including their diamondizing glare. They had no shields, though, and no attacks like Starstorm or Special, though, so they were not as powerful as Starmen. In essence, they were glass cannons. Ness took advantage of this and powered a ball of PSI Rockin in his hands while the Greater Mooks and Elite Mooks attempted to use their own psychic attacks against Ness. The first move they used was PSI Thunder, a good opening move for collapsing any shield or psychic shield that Ness may have had raised. While Ness had no shields of any sort raised over himself at this moment, he still had his Franklin Badge on, which was visible on his chest, though the Mooks did not know what it was or what its effects were. Their lightning bolts struck Ness straight in the chest and as they did so, the familiar metallic clang rang out over the battlefield. Immediately, the lightning was reflected back at the Mooks. Looks of shock crossed their faces as they were forced to endure their own reflected attacks. Since they had attacked with PSI Thunder Omega, they suffered fatal damage from their own attacks. The Mooks writhed and squealed in agony as their own reflected attacks struck them, electricity arcing across their bodies ravaging them with horrible burns. After a few moments, the Mooks fell to the ground, the Greater Mooks partially collapsing to dust, leaving behind the remains of torsos and tentacles, while the Elite Mooks merely fell to the ground. Giygas made certain that the Elite Mooks would never rise again by telekinetically pile driving the dead or dying Mooks into the ground. This left Ness nothing for him to unleash his Rockin against that was close by. That problem was soon solved, though.

Ness looked up into the sky and saw the Sky Runner II being pursued by a squadron of four Fighter UFOs. With the few Mr. Saturn ships currently engaged in battles of their own, there was no one to help out Jeff. Jeff juked and jived away from the green energy blasts of the pursuing ships, while returning fire with his own energy cannons, but without a crew, Jeff had to concentrate on flying as well as shooting. As a result, the accuracy of the cannons suffered. In addition, the pursuing ships had also raised their shields, as one of Jeff's energy bolts glanced off of the shields of one of the Fighter UFOs, causing a field of blue energy to form upon the bolt's impact. Ness grinned. That squadron of Fighter UFOs would be a perfect target for his unused ball of PSI Rockin. He waved to Jeff, trying to get Jeff's attention and tell him that he was going to cover him. Jeff must have seen him, for Jeff immediately went into a dive and quickly did a 180 degree turn, which brought the pursuing UFOs lower, increasing the chances that Ness's attack would hit. Ness then propelled his ball of PSI Rockin at the UFOs. The ball instantly rocketed towards the diamond formation of UFOs. Once it had split the middle of the formation, the ball detonated. The expanding sphere of psychic energy quickly engulfed the four Fighter UFOs, instantly annihilating them, reducing them to clouds of dust and vapor. When the sphere of energy dissipated, there was no trace of the four Fighter UFOs remaining.

In another part of the valley, Paula, Poo, and Giygas had already begun their run through the valley to clear the valley of remaining enemies. They had already eliminated the remains of a force of Madelines and Lukes and were currently engaged in a battle against a force of Kevins. The Kevin robots hurled blobs of psychic fire at the group, which merely rebounded off of the group's psychic counter shield and streaked back towards the robots. The blobs of fire quickly struck the robots and melted them into slag. Paula and Poo were quite surprised that the robots, despite their greater array of psychic powers, did not seem to be all that much stronger than the previous models. They just shrugged at the thought and continued to move throughout the valley, clearing out more groups of enemies, and rendering assistance to any injured or dying Mr. Saturns. Poo's Lifeup Gamma and his PSI Healing Omega were instrumental in reviving comatose or dead Mr. Saturns.

While Paula and Poo had switched their focus from attack to defense and healing, Ness continued to aggressively target remaining groups of enemy soldiers. He quickly came across a Starman Deluxe and two Starman Warriors. As he went in to engage them, he was quickly joined by Giygas, who instantly appeared besides him. Looking over at Ness and grinning, he asked, "Shall we?"

Ness grin was all the answer he needed. Ness drew out a Super Bomb and activated it. He then tossed the Super Bomb towards the Starmen and backed away as it detonated, propelling shrapnel towards the Starmen. The Starmen, however, had raised a Shield Sigma and they suffered no damage from the attack. However, what the Starmen did not realize was that the attack was merely a feint. While they had raised the shield to absorb the detonation of the Super Bomb, Ness had powered a ball of PSI Rockin. He unleashed the ball of PSI Rockin at the three powerful Starmen. The ball streaked towards the psychic enemies and detonated upon impact with the Starman Deluxe. The Starmen had curled up, raising their psychic and physical defenses, when Ness's ball of PSI Rockin struck. The group was quickly engulfed by the sphere of pulsing scarlet psychic energy. After a few seconds, however, the globe of psychic energy dissipated, but the Starmen remained, though their suits were smoking and burns covered them. They had sustained severe damage, but they were still able to fight. The Starmen quickly powered snowflakes of psychic energy over their heads and unleashed them at Ness, knowing that Giygas was too powerful for them to destroy. Giygas, however, stepped in front of Ness and took the full impact of the three blasts of PSI Freeze. The snowflakes of psychic energy struck him and detonated, showering him with snowflakes. However, Giygas's shield prevented him from sustaining any damage from the attacks. Ness then retaliated for Giygas with another blast of PSI Rockin. He tossed the ball at the Starman Deluxe and his flanking Starman Warriors just as the Starman Warriors had ignited their Beam Swords. The ball struck the Starmen and detonated, once again covering them in a red globe of psychic energy. The Starmen made no sounds as they were vaporized by the globe of psychic energy. Once the globe of psychic energy dissipated, there was no trace of the Starmen.

After the battle, Ness looked around for another group of Starmen or other enemies to unceremoniously kick off of Earth. As he spotted another group of Starmen and robot soldiers, he noticed them vanish into thin air. He and Giygas glanced around the battlefield and found that the remains of the PSI Alien army were now retreating. Paula and Poo also glanced around the battlefield and noticed that the remnants of the enemy soldiers were also vanishing. Not only that, but the remaining Fighter UFOs were also retreating back into the City Smasher.

Ness looked up and saw a spike extending down from the center of the craft and he knew exactly what was coming next. Giygas looked up and cried, "The City Smasher is about to fire!"

The Mr. Saturns confirmed this as their ships attempted to attack the spire that had extended below the ship. However, the spike was protected by an energy shield that absorbed all of their fire inflicting no damage to the craft. The craft did not even bother to return fire on the Mr. Saturn ships or the Sky Runner II. The craft slowly rose into the air and Giygas could sense that the energy buildup in the ship was much faster than it had been on previous designs. "Oh, no," he stammered. "It's too late. That ship is already ready to fire."

Indeed, the ship was already beginning to roll. Its spike rising into the air as the craft spun around, bringing a ball-like object downward. The ship was now upside down. Everybody knew what was about to happen. Ness immediately powered a Shield Omega and did his best to extend it around the entire valley. It was taxing, though, considering that he had already used three PSI Rockin attacks earlier in the fighting. Still, he gave it his all. Ness's eyes began to glow as he pushed all of his remaining psychic energy into his shield. Looking up, Giygas saw balls of energy and streams of lightning beginning to gather in the center of the round jewel that was the primary weapon of the City Smasher. Giygas telepathically warned Jeff and the Mr. Saturn fighter pilots to flee the valley. A giant ball of rainbow colored energy was forming in the center of the jewel at the center of the City Smasher. Giygas could sense the mind of the Starman Deluxe that was commanding the vessel as he gave the command, "Fire," to his underlings.

"Brace yourself Ness!" Giygas called. "It's firing!"

Just then, a stream of rainbow colored energy was unleashed onto Saturn Valley. Ness had extended his Shield Omega so that it rose above Saturn Valley. The stream of energy struck Ness's counter shield and he could feel that this blast was a lot more powerful than the blast that had been used earlier. Where that beam had been little more than seventy kilotons in yield, this beam must have been around ten times as powerful. Ness knew that even with his improved strength, his shield would not have likely held out against that beam long enough to withstand the entirety of the blast. Fortunately, however, his shield was not a Shield Sigma, but a Shield Omega. That meant that the beam was also being reflected back at its source. A reddish hue appeared above Saturn Valley as Ness's shield stood up to the stream of energy that was being unleashed upon the valley, and reflected it back at the City Smasher. Already, Ness could see the damage being inflicted on the jewel as its own energy was being sent back to it. The jewel began to glow red, and then orange, and eventually white. What looked to be white drops of melted matter drip off the jewel, only to vaporize before striking the shield. After a few seconds, the jewel exploded, unleashing an expanding ball of flame, which quickly spread throughout the ship. The steam of energy terminated immediately upon the destruction of the jewel. The explosion that resulted from the detonation of the jewel and the fires that were spreading throughout the ship due to the reflected beam were the ships downfall.

On the ground, Giygas grinned as he heard the psychic cries of the Starman Deluxe commander as the bridge had been vaporized by the reflected stream of energy. He simply watched as the flames and cracks revealing the flames spread from the center of the ship, outward towards the outer edges of the City Smasher. Pieces of debris began to rain down upon Ness's shield, which amazingly still had enough energy to absorb the impact from the debris that was now raining down from the stricken City Smasher. Fire soon breached the hull of the outer edges of the saucer and the ship could no longer stay aloft. As the flaming ship began to fall, Giygas powered a blast of his PSI Special Omega and hurled it at the falling ship, for he knew that Ness's weakened Shield Omega would not be sufficient to protect the valley from the crashing ship. However, with his power, he could annihilate the dead ship without causing any more damage to Saturn Valley. Once his psychic energy ball was fully powered, he launched it at the falling ship. His blast of PSI Special struck the falling City Smasher and detonated, engulfing the entire city-sized ship in a green globe of psychic energy. The wind from the explosion rushed against Ness's Shield Omega and he waited, glancing over to Paula so that she could raise her PSI Shield Omega should such precautions be necessary. Eventually, the globe of psychic energy dissipated, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust and smoke, which would eventually settle in the valley and its surroundings.

Once the City Smasher had been annihilated, Ness lowered his Shield Omega, and fell to his knees, his eyes returning to normal, breathing heavily, just as he had with his previous encounter with a City Smasher. Paula and Poo immediately appeared at his side and checked on his condition. Ness held up his hand, though, indicating that he was fine. Paula still came over to check on him, though. "Are you okay?" she asked, her voice full of concern.

Ness nodded, still breathing heavily. "Don't worry Paula. I'm fine. I'm just tired. I pushed everything I had into that Shield Omega."

"Well, the battle's over so you can rest for a bit."

"That would be great," Ness replied as he knelt back down on the ground.

A Mr. Saturn soon came over to the two and told them, "Thanks for saving us from City Smasher. For your payment, we will give you supplies and let you stay at Saturn Hotel for free."

"Thanks," Paula said for Ness and the others.

Not far away, Jeff landed the Sky Runner II, with the few Mr. Saturn ships that had taken part in the fighting also returning to the valley to land since the danger had passed, for the moment. After he had landed, the boarding ramp lowered and Jeff came rushing out of the craft. He came over as Ness slowly stood up. The Mr. Saturn that had come over to tell them of the offer, told Jeff and the others, "You may stay here for free while we resupply you, free of charge. _Zoing_."

Ness and the others thanked the Mr. Saturns while Ness, Paula, and Poo proceeded to make their way to the Saturn Hotel. Jeff, meanwhile, went over to talk to the Mr. Saturns to talk about getting the required fuel stores for the trip to the moon, and the necessary armaments that would be needed in order to get there in once piece as well as take down the Starman base that was on the moon.

Standing on a mountaintop above Saturn Valley was Giygas's father, Goog. Goog looked down in the valley and saw the remains of the Starmen and other soldiers being cleaned up off the ground by the Mr. Saturns and the humans' tech wizard, Jeff Andonuts. He scanned the valley for any signs of his son and he soon saw him assisting the other Mr. Saturns. He frowned at the sight and gritted his teeth. He had felt that all of the Mr. Saturns had survived the assault, with the only losses coming to the tank drones that the Mr. Saturns had fielded against the assaulting forces. Attacking Saturn Valley again would be costly, and Goog doubted that they could withstand another loss like that before the arrival of the main fleet. He then focused on his son once more and a tear came to his eye. He knew that chances were that he had lost him. Still, he was not willing to give up on Giygas. He had to convince his son to follow his destiny and help his people destroy the humans. And he would do so…no matter the cost.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

In outer space, between Earth and Mars, the fleet of the PSI Aliens continued to make its journey towards Earth. Giegue looked over the reports flooding in over the comm from the bridge of the flagship of the PSI Alien fleet. He ignored the rest of the activity on the bridge as officers gave their reports to the captain and/or other superiors. He just stared at the reports coming in over the comm and that were appearing on the screens. Giegue grimaced at the sight of each and every one of the reports. Not only had he lost his advanced strike force in an attack on Saturn Valley that ended in the loss of the City Smasher as well, he lost one of the few ships and forces that were unequivocally loyal to him, and to him alone. The loss of the advance strike force on Earth was not all that bad in and of itself. The really bad news came in the form of the reports regarding the Sanctuaries in the Faerie World and in Lava Mountain. Both of the Sanctuaries had been claimed by the Chosen Four and Giygas. This bit of news began to worry Giegue. Now the PSI Lords were down to one Sanctuary, the one on Earth's moon. So far, that Sanctuary had not reported any signs of infiltration, but he did not know how long that would last. Even worse, though, was the prospect of what losing these Sanctuaries would mean for his position in the PSI Lord army. He had already heard rumors about how the Starmen were already pledging their loyalty to potential replacements for him. That was the primary reason why he had altered the failsafe programming in their minds that would shut them down. He did not want any of his enemies being able to send the Starmen against him, and he wanted to be able to render them unconscious should they, indeed, rebel against him.

Giegue then thought about his older brother, Giygas. Reports had indicated that he did not play all that great a role in the losses of those two Sanctuaries, however those same reports also indicated that he did play a role in the destruction of the City Smasher and the salvation of Saturn Valley during the raid against the technologically advanced Mr. Saturns. Secretly, his greatest fear was that if, indeed, Giygas was actually still loyal to his people, he might merely be using the humans to cement his own position as leader of his own people once more. His father had declared Giygas no longer fit to command his people after Giygas's defeat at the hands of Ninten and the others, merely making him the vessel for the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. However, Giygas had resisted and only when the rest of his species had gone against him, did Giygas relinquish power to Googi, making him the new Giegue. However, with the defeat of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, as well as the sacrifice of all of the PSI Lords, save for the thousand currently in the fleet attacking Earth, for the creation of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, things were different now. Giygas had not made a move against Giegue out of respect for the fact that he was Giegue's brother. Giegue still believed, though, that if push came to shove between them, that Giygas would try to take over once more. And with his current record during the invasion of the humans, a pitiful backwater race with only a hundred confirmed psychics, most of them children and most now dead or captured, he could easily see the other PSI Lords backing Giygas should this all be a power play. After all, no PSI Lords had been harmed yet, and the loss of the Sanctuaries was an insignificant loss in the grand scheme of things should Giygas eventually cause the destruction of humanity, while still learning about the psychic powers that the human psychics wielded. This could give Giygas a decisive advantage should he try to take over the PSI Lords, if he did not already have sufficient power to do so. After all, Giegue knew that in a one-on-one fight that he would likely lose to Giygas.

Giegue turned to the captain of the ship and said, "Captain, you have the bridge. Alert me when we reach Earth's moon."

"Yes my lord," the captain responded. Giegue then turned and left the bridge, the door leading to the hall that housed the quarters for the high ranking occupants of the ship sliding open as he approached. The door then slid closed behind him as he left to go back to his quarters.

Giegue arrived at his quarters and entered as soon as the door had slid open. He immediately stormed to the bedroom, where Miridhel was looking into her globe to glean the future. Upon entering his quarters, Miridhel shot up and looked at Giegue. "What is your bidding, my lord?" she asked.

"Tell me what you have seen with regards to the future of our assault on Earth," Giegue commanded.

Miridhel sat back down at her globe and gazed into the ball. After chanting a spell, the globe changed colors from a milky hue to a bright, glowing blue green. Images and swirls appeared that only Miridhel could comprehend. "The future with regards to our assault on Earth and its people looks bright?"

"For whom?" he shouted indignantly. The only one it looked bright for, at the moment, were the Chosen Four and humanity.

"For the PSI Lords," came Miridhel's response. It sounded quite casual, which was rarer and rarer for Miridhel in recent days, due wave after wave of bad news coming to Giegue and the PSI Lords.

Giegue did not bother to hide his shock. His mouth hung open in surprise. "How…how can that be?" Giegue stammered. "I just got finished reading reports on how we lost our advance strike force in an attack on Saturn Valley and how the Faerie World and the Lava Mountain Sanctuaries were now claimed by the humans. Not only that, but my brother played a role in the defeat of the advance force in Saturn Valley." He then paused as he began to wonder if his brother was, actually, still loyal. "Don't tell me that Giygas _is_ still loyal to us."

"That remains unclear," Miridhel replied. "It could still go either way with regards to your brother's loyalty." Miridhel then paused for a moment, looking down at the ground, before facing her master again. "There is one thing that does concern me, Master."

"What is it?" Giegue asked, looking into her eyes.

"Your father has disappeared from the ship. I was unable to get a precise location, but I believe that he has teleported down to Earth."

"What makes you think that?"

"Where else would he go, Master? There is nothing on Luna for him. The only place where there is something of value to him is on Earth in the form of your older brother."

Giegue considered what Miridhel was saying. For a moment, he worried that his father might be planning on betraying him to Giygas and/or the humans. No, he thought, that was not him. Unlike Giygas, who was raised by that human woman, his father was truly a PSI Lord in every sense of the word. If anything, he was probably going down to Earth to talk some sense into Giygas. The problem was what if Giygas refused to listen and decided to fight back? Giygas was the strongest PSI Lord in history. If his father fought Giygas, chances were that Giygas would win. Still, he would wait to find out what happened, though he would take a keen interest in the result of that conversation, for it would likely help him be better able to determine whether or not Giygas was a traitor or not. He then turned to Miridhel and commanded, "Continue scanning the future. If you find anything, report it immediately. I'm going to rest for the time being."

"Yes, my lord," the High Star Elf responded. Giegue then went into the bed and went to sleep. Miridhel followed her master's command and continued to gaze into the crystal ball, hoping to find a more certain outcome. Despite the initial visions indicating a PSI Lord victory, future sight was often very imprecise. And one could never look into one's own true future. All that could be seen were potential futures. Granted, most good precogs saw the most likely futures, rather than a future that only had a point zero-zero-zero-zero-one percent chance of occurring, but that highly unlikely future could still happen. Miridhel only hoped that the incredibly unlikely future of Ness and the others emerging victorious, with or without Giygas's help, did not happen.

Back in Saturn Valley, evening was beginning to turn into night. Giygas stood on top of a cliff overlooking the valley, watching the setting sun and sighed. The sun was a deep orange and the clouds had a reddish-orange outline to them. Now was the time that he missed Maria the most. He looked back and thought of all the good times that he had had with his adoptive mother: all the times she sang to him, or they danced, or merely played games together. He had never met his biological mother, but from the records he had secretly read, she was the complete opposite of Maria, which was why she likely slept with his father. She was cold, manipulative, and sadistic. She had destroyed or taken part in the destruction of multiple species and had viewed Giygas as an inconvenience. She did not care about his wellbeing and records indicated that she had been all too thrilled when the PSI Lords had decided to use him as the vessel and anchor for the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. He looked down into the valley and watched Jeff help the Mr. Saturns in loading the Sky Runner II with the proper fuel stores and cargo for their next trip. He also noticed Jeff going over some new weapons and item designs with the Mr. Saturns. He then shifted his focus to telepathically searching for Ness, Paula, and Poo. He quickly found Poo meditating and training. He sometimes rested by listening to reports on the Wolf News Channel about the PSI Alien forces. So far, attacks in Europe and Asia were continuing, but they were lessening, likely due to the losses of the second fleet. The attacks in North America had almost stopped entirely, with only military bases being assaulted by hit and run tactics with varying degrees of success. He soon zeroed in on Ness and Paula, who were eating at the new Saturn Restaurant. He could almost smell the crab dip appetizer that the two teens were sharing. He could also hear the music playing in the background, a nice, soothing jazz piece that almost had Paula dancing in her seat, which only allowed Ness to pluck more crab dip from the bowl. Giygas laughed at the scene. He then recalled his telepathic senses. There were no problems there, and he did not want to intrude on their dinner.

Giygas was about to go back down into the valley when he sensed another presence appear behind him. He scowled at the familiar presence and turned to find his father, Goog, standing ten yards away. "Hello Giygas, it's been too long," Goog said almost kindly, though Giygas could hear a note of derision in his voice.

Giygas gave an animalistic growl. "Not long enough," he retorted. "Leave this place at once," Giygas growled. "I don't want to talk with you."

"But I _do_ want to talk with you," his father countered calmly. "In fact, I _need_ to talk with you."

"About what, getting me to go back to the Flagship?" Giygas asked sarcastically. "I've made my decision. Save yourself the trouble and go back to Googi."

"Giygas, I'm giving you a chance to return to us, despite everything you have done to our plans," Goog offered, his hands open, as if showing that he had nothing to hide.

"I've taken out thousands of your troops, and allowed the humans to kill many more," Giygas mocked. "I helped lead the group to Stonehenge and helped them take out The Fool and his consort. Because of me, the Faeries have withdrawn their support of our forces and now fight against us, with only the remnants of The Fool's forces assisting us. Countless Starmen are also dead, including several Starman Warriors, and the Starman Deluxes that were in charge of the ships in orbit, as well as in charge of ground assaults. I could go on, but you get the gist."

"Starmen can be replaced," Goog calmly explained, though Giygas could hear his voice crack, though that was mainly due to the lack of respect that Giygas was showing to him. "Ships can be built, and anything less than Starmen are practically meaningless in the grand scheme of things. The Faeries were only good for cannon fodder anyways, so the loss of the Faerie World is no big deal."

While Goog tried to sound calm and reasonable, Giygas could hear the derision in his voice. Goog was disappointed in his son. "Why have you come, Father?" Giygas asked.

Goog smiled at the question. "What is it?" Giygas asked coldly.

"You called me 'Father'," Goog answered. "I haven't heard you call me that in a long time."

"It's going to be the last," Giygas stated flatly.

"As for why I came, that should be obvious due to the nature of our conversation," Goog said in answer to Giygas's first question. "I came here to bring you back to us. You don't belong among the humans. You will always be an alien to them…an outcast. They will never trust you. Hell, even that human boy on the Chosen Four doesn't know whether or not he can trust you."

"He has good reason to wonder," Giygas answered.

"What does that mean?" Goog asked, perplexed by Giygas's answer.

"I was less than helpful in their last battle, the fight against the Carbon Dog and Diamond Dog," the younger PSI Alien replied. "Not only that, but he overheard a discussion that I had with the spirit of my Mother, Maria."

Goog frowned. "So that human witch is still affecting you," he said in a disappointed tone. "You should not let that witch affect you the way she does."

"Maria is not a witch!" Giygas snapped. His rage was so great that he sent a wave of telekinetic energy towards his father. Goog was taken off his feet and sailed through the air at least ten yards before crashing on the rocky ground behind him. He skidded to a halt a few feet away. Giygas neared his father menacingly. "Maria is my Mother," he said in a quiet, yet cold, hard voice full of all the fury that Giygas could muster.

Goog looked into Giygas's eyes intently. "Giygas, I don't want to lose my favorite son. Despite everything you've done to our cause here, I am willing to forgive and forget. Come back with me," he pleaded. "Take back your place as leader of the PSI Lords. Your brother is a less than capable leader, as you should well know by now. Come back and lead us to a glorious victory against these ugly Earth people."

Giygas shook his head. "I'm sorry Father. I can't do that. I have made my decision and I must see this through to the end. Please leave now, Father. I do not want to fight you."

Goog frowned at his son. "Your place is among your own kind, with those who will follow you; not with a race of aliens that just barely managed to avoid wiping itself out. Do you really think that even if these humans survive now, that they'll last much longer?"

"I don't know," Giygas shrugged casually. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see." Giygas then scowled at his father. "I highly recommend that you leave, now…before this degenerates into a fight; a fight you will lose."

"So you have made your decision then," Goog said, wanting Giygas to tell him his decision to his face.

"I have," Giygas confirmed. "Leave now."

Goog then teleported away, leaving Giygas with many things to think about. It was now more than ever that he felt the weight of what he had to do. Once again, he was questioning himself on whether or not he was doing the right thing. "No," he resolved to himself. "I must stick to this path. Things will become much clearer after I claim the last Sanctuary." With his resolve reaffirmed, Giygas continued to stand on the mountain and gaze down into Saturn Valley, and watch the Mr. Saturns mill about.

Down in Saturn Valley proper, Ness and Paula were enjoying a dinner at a nice restaurant with each other. Earlier in the day, Ness and Paula had showered and gotten dressed up for this rare opportunity to go out on a real date. Ness was wearing a tuxedo that was specifically tailored for him while Paula wore a fine exquisite pink dress to their dinner. When Paula had arrived, Ness was speechless at the sight of her beauty. They had since decided to dine out at the Saturn Restaurant. Saturn Restaurant was not crowded at all since most of the Mr. Saturns were currently busy repairing the damaged parts of Saturn Valley. As such, Ness and Paula practically had the restaurant all to themselves. As of right now, they were enjoying their meals, with Ness eating a delicious steak while Paula was having a tuna steak. The teens enjoyed their meal and when it was finished, they got the bill, which would have only totaled around forty dollars for the two of them, despite the high quality of the food. However, since they had helped the Mr. Saturns, the Mr. Saturns were quite willing to let them eat at the restaurant for free. Once they were finished, the departed the restaurant, leaving the forty dollars, plus a fifteen-dollar tip as thanks for their hospitality and as a testament to the food.

After leaving the restaurant, they decided to go around Saturn Valley and explore the valley a bit before returning to the hotel. During their travels around the valley, Paula wanted to check out the shops. Paula first went into a clothing boutique, which was not designed for humans. As such, there were very few selections for her. Still, she explored every last inch of the store, which bored Ness to no end. After all too much time, Paula finally emerged, having bought absolutely nothing. After she exited the store, the two continued down the street.

Soon, the group came upon another shop. This was a tool shop that sold several cooking utensils. Upon stepping inside, a frying pan caught Paula's eye. She recognized the frying pan as a Holy Frying Pan, a weapon that was said to have been blessed by a priest. Paula quickly noticed that it was not on the list of free items that the Mr. Saturns were willing to give them. However, the shop also allowed for trade-ins, so that would be helpful in making the frying pan more affordable. As such, Paula decided to sell her Non-Stick Fry Pan, Defense Ribbon, and Sea Pendant towards the thirty-five hundred dollar purchase price of the Holy Frying Pan. Oddly enough, the trade-ins came to exact change, so Paula managed to get the Holy Frying Pan for free anyway. Once the purchase was made, Paula put the frying pan in her purse and she continued on to the next shop.

The next shop had items that were free for the teens for this stay. Both Ness and Paula found a wide variety of pendants and bands, all of which were either inferior to or merely equal to the equipment that Ness and Paula currently possessed. They soon decided to check out one more store before returning to the hotel. This store was only a few steps away from the hut that they had come out of. Inside this hut, the Mr. Saturn sold a variety of healing items, some of which Paula and Ness had never seen before. Paula noticed a cake that was labeled "Special Cake" and she asked the clerk, "Excuse me Mr. Saturn, what is the 'Special Cake'?"

"Special Cake is a cake that completely gives back psychic power. _Ding_," the Mr. Saturn behind the counter replied.

Ness and Paula's eyes lit up at the mention of the Special Cake's effects. It seemed as if it was able to completely replenish a person's psychic energy. These would be useful. They were small as well, so they seemed to be designed for one person to eat as a quick snack.

"How much do they cost?" Ness asked.

"For you, saviors of Saturn Valley, they are free for the rest of today and tonight," the Mr. Saturn answered.

Ness and Paula quickly realized just how useful such items would be. They quickly checked their inventory and found that they had some space for a few cakes. As such, Ness took two Special Cakes, while Paula took two as well. Since they were free, the teens did not have to pay the Mr. Saturn at all. Ness considered selling his Magic Truffles to the Mr. Saturn to make room for the Special Cakes, but he decided against it. They may encounter some neat items on the moon, and he did not want to get a Special Cake only to have to toss it later, so he decided to keep the Magic Truffles. He would use them up before starting to use the Special Cakes. Before the teens left to head back to their hotel room, though, the Mr. Saturn called after them, saying, "In a few days, all shops in Saturn Valley will have super new items. Please come by again."

Ness and Paula turned back and nodded politely. They were interested to hear what these new items were. "What are they?" the teens asked excitedly.

The Mr. Saturn gave what the two thought was a shrug. "I don't know. But they'll be super! _Boing_!"

Ness and Paula glanced at each other and then back at the Mr. Saturn. "Trust me. You'll love them. _Zoing_!"

"I, guess," Paula said, trying to be polite. She had a feeling that if they came back after their trip to the moon, that they would check out the new inventions, but until then, this was all that they would get. They then left the shop and headed back to their hotel, which was only a couple hundred yards away from the shopping center. The hotel was a larger building than most, since it was only relatively recently built. Unlike almost all of the other buildings in Saturn Valley, the Saturn Hotel was designed to accommodate humans first, and Mr. Saturns second. Ness had suspected that the plans developed by Hannah for her family and for human visitors and colleagues. It stood at ten stories tall and towered over the smaller huts and Mr. Saturn designed buildings. Ness and Paula went into the lobby of the hotel and headed straight for the elevator. The Mr. Saturn at the desk called over to them, saying, "Welcome back to Saturn Hotel. _Boing_."

Ness and Paula casually waved to the Mr. Saturn in acknowledgement of his greeting before getting onboard the elevator. They went up to the sixth floor, where they disembarked from the elevator. They then headed to the room, six-oh-four. Ness got the cardkey and inserted it into the slot. The red light turned green and a buzz was heard. Ness pulled the door open and both he and Paula walked on through.

The interior of their hotel room was quite opulent. The purple and red carpet was plush and the furniture was of the highest quality. A sofa sat near the center of the room behind a small round table. In front of the sofa mounted on the wall was a large liquid crystal high definition television. Ness instantly jumped onto the sofa and laid on it, sprawled out. He wanted to take this opportunity to get a good night's sleep. Paula was not all that interested in watching television, or sleeping, though. She went a ways behind the sofa to an open space near a cabinet. Paula opened the cabinet doors and revealed a pair of speakers. Below the speakers was a radio that was connected to the speakers. Paula turned a knob on the radio and music started to play. The music was an instrumental jazz piece. Paula noticed that Ness was almost asleep and raised the volume of the music so that it was just loud enough to wake him up. She then went over to him with a mischievous grin plastered onto her face. She approached him and when she saw that the music was not enough to keep him awake, she tapped him on the shoulder. Her touch jolted him out of his stupor and he looked up at her. She offered her hand for him to take. However, Ness was in no condition to dance. "Thank you for the offer, Paula, but right now I'm really tired. I just got finished eating a good and filling meal, the first I've had in a long time, and shopping around town. Right now, I just want to sleep, if that's okay."

Paula then grabbed his wrist and pulled him up to her with surprising strength. "You can sleep all you like after you dance with me to this one song," she said quietly in a playful tone. "Please," she asked, folding her hands in prayer, playfully begging him to dance with her.

Seeing that there was little he could really do to resist, he accepted her offer. The fact that the dimly lit room only accented Paula's beauty was another thing that told his body, and mind to forget his weariness and dance with the girl. Even though his dance was slow and disjointed, due to his fatigue, he managed to finish the dance before staggering back to the couch and falling asleep. Paula helped him over to the couch and lowered him onto the sofa, where Ness fell asleep. While he slept, Paula watched him and smiled until she, too, felt weariness begin to overcome her. She then went over to another sofa and fell asleep on it.

Meanwhile, Jeff was helping the Mr. Saturns load armaments and fuel onto the Sky Runner II. Trucks were loading the fuel reserves that would be needed to make the trip to the moon and back into the ship's cargo bay. Other crates that were being loaded onto the ship contained spare weapons, power packs for Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol and other guns, and other essential items for their assault on the moon. Jeff continued to monitor the progress the Mr. Saturns made, while also taking the time to focus on another invention that he was making the finishing touches to, the Counter PSI Helmet. He also hoped to finish his greatest invention yet, the PSI Disruptor, before departing for the moon, but if he could not complete it, he would at least be able to start working on it. However, that was not the biggest project that he was working on, though. The biggest project that he had decided to tackle, which would not be finished before they made their trip to the moon, was the reconstruction and improvement of a robot soldier that looked to be quite formidable. The outer hull of the wrecked robot was maroon. From what Jeff could tell, the robot looked like it was equipped with energy weapons as well as missiles. Jeff had heard that the Mr. Saturns called it EVE in passing. Upon seeing the wreck, he had decided that EVE would rise again. Still, he thought that it would be best to keep EVE a secret. Even though the Starmen may have had a penchant for reading minds, if he focused on improving other items first, then there was a chance that he could avoid revealing EVE to any of their enemies since EVE was not going to be ready for the assault on the moon. Besides, he had a good feeling that his new weapons and items would be much more important in the short term.

When Jeff was satisfied that everything was going according to schedule, he ducked back into the Saturn Lab and got to work finishing his Counter PSI Helmet. With this helmet, he would be able to seal the psychic abilities of any psychic opponent that he focused on and targeted. The only potential problem was that it might also affect his friends as well, so he wanted them to experience the helmet's abilities during the flight to the moon before using it. Not only did he have the Counter PSI Helmet, but with the broken machine that he was working on to repair into a Counter PSI Unit, he could use pieces from that, and the broken transceiver that he found in Lava Mountain, to create the PSI Disruptor, a weapon that would be effective against psychic enemies and especially effective against ghosts and ghost-like enemies, such as Ghosts of Starman. Still, that was a ways off. Right now, he wanted to finish working on the Counter PSI Helmet, and then finish working on creating the Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket and giving it to the Mr. Saturns so that they could build more of them while Jeff and the others were on the moon. Sooner or later, he knew that the group would likely have to go up Mount Itoi once more; and when they did, he wished to have a ready supply of Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets. With these, he would be able to target multiple enemies and inflict a great deal of damage to said enemies. Even better was that once completed he would be able to link the firing and targeting systems of his Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket to his Counter PSI Helmet, with targeting glasses.

Once Jeff was finished putting the final touches to the Counter PSI Helmet that would also allow it to be a targeting system for the new Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets, Jeff got to work working on the prototype Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket. It only took him a couple of hours to modify his remaining Multi Bottle Rocket and create the Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket. After he had completed his work, he decided to give the new weapon to the weapons specialist Dr. Saturn in the lab. When Jeff entered the lab, he proclaimed, "Dr. Saturn, I've completed work on a new invention that should help us should, or rather, when, the PSI Aliens return." He pulled out his new Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket. "Ta dah! Feast your eyes on the new Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket. It has just as many warheads as the Multi Bottle Rocket, but with a proper targeting interface, for me, my Counter PSI Helmet, but for you, it can be anything you want, you can split the bottle rocket's fire between multiple targets."

"Excellent!" Dr. Saturn exclaimed upon hearing the description of the new weapon. "We'll have a few built for you by tomorrow, with more to come in a few days."

"Thanks," Jeff replied. He then handed them the blueprints to the Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket, along with the prototype that he was building.

"What do you want done about the other project? _Zoing_!"

"Focus on the Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets for now. EVE is an emergency extra soldier. When we come back we can finish work on her. I also want to implement some improvements to EVE's design."

"Got it," Dr. Saturn replied. "Thanks for the blueprints and prototype. _Boing_!"

Jeff then proceeded to leave the lab. He noticed that it was getting late, and he was hoping to get an early start tomorrow, so he decided to head back to the hotel. On the way, he noticed Poo making his way back to the hotel as well, and joined his friend.

Once they got back to the hotel, they quickly made their way up to the room and went inside. Inside the room, they found Ness already sprawled out on one of the sofas, asleep. Paula had laid claim to the other sofa at the other end of the room. Knowing that it was anyone's bed, Jeff and Poo rushed into the bedroom to claim the bed. Unfortunately, they arrived in a tie. As such, it was Poo who made the suggestion, "Let's flip a coin to see who gets the bed, and who gets the floor or a chair."

Jeff then pulled out a coin and tossed it into the air. "Call it in the air," Jeff said, hoping that he did not awaken Ness or Paula.

"Heads," Poo said quietly.

The coin fell to the floor and it landed, tails up. Jeff grinned. That meant that he got the bed, and that Poo would have to sleep in one of the chairs or on the floor. Poo was not annoyed by the outcome, though. He then unpacked a couple of sheets and a sleeping bag that he had gotten for free at the Saturn Outdoor Store.

It did not take Jeff and Poo long to wash up and change into their pajamas. Poo quickly went to sleep, while Jeff stayed up for a while, working on what he intended to be his PSI Disruptor. After a while, though, he too went to sleep, deciding to let the new invention lie until tomorrow.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

The next day, the Ness and Paula awakened to the smell of pancakes and bacon. Upon awakening, they quickly rose from the sofas and headed over to the kitchen table, where Jeff was preparing breakfast. He had had the foresight to prepare breakfast for Ness and Paula as well. He also prepared a small bowl of ramen noodles for Poo, since he was still not all that fond of western foods. Ness and Paula quickly got some of the extra pancakes and bacon and sat down to eat. A few minutes later, Poo groggily walked into the room and took the bowl of ramen noodles that Jeff had prepared for him. Upon tasting the noodles, he perked up a bit. The noodles were better than he had expected them to be. The four sat at the table and enjoyed their breakfasts at their leisure. It would be the last home-cooked meal they would enjoy for the next few days at least.

Once the meal was finished, Ness and Paula went to the back room to wash up and to get out of their pajamas. They put on their usual attire: for Ness, a yellow and purple striped t-shirt and blue shorts, and a pink sleeveless polo shirt and blue shorts for Paula. Once they were finished, they returned to the living room of the apartment.

When they returned to the living room, they found Poo putting the dishes in the dishwasher and Jeff tinkering with a new invention. Paula, who was curious about Jeff's invention went over to him and asked, "Hey Jeff, what are you working on?"

Jeff looked up when he heard Paula's voice. It took him a few seconds to marshal his tongue, since he had been concentrating so hard on his invention. Eventually, he responded, "It's a PSI Disruptor. Once it's finished it will be effective specifically against powerful psychic enemies, and energy beings, such as Ghosts of Starmen. It shouldn't have any effect on normals, though. Still, this will be in the form of a gun and fire a direct bolt, so you won't have to worry about getting around it, unlike my other invention, the Counter PSI Helmet, which I have already completed."

"Counter PSI Helmet," Paula said flatly, staring down at him in a way that made Jeff uncomfortable. "That wouldn't be related to that Counter Telepathy Helmet that you wore back at the baseball game when we celebrated Ness's birthday now would it?"

Jeff was quite nervous at Paula's statement, remembering how pleased she had been about him jamming her telepathy and allowing Ness to make a game-winning hit after she had been teasing him by telepathically disrupting his concentration. "Uh, yes," he managed to stammer in reply, which only resulted in Paula glaring down at him. Jeff shrunk under Paula's glare and he quickly added, "But don't worry. I'm going to calibrate it so that it won't affect your psychic powers at all. Besides, it's not just for offense. If a powerful psychic can still manage to use his or her psychic powers, this helmet will allow me to survive the blast by disrupting the attack so it won't be instantly fatal to me." Jeff gave a nervous laugh as Paula's gaze continued to pierce his soul.

Ness had no problem with Jeff's helmet and eventually, Paula lightened her gaze on him. Poo, who had been listening in on the conversation, also had no problem with Jeff's inventions. As long as they did not blow up in their faces, which none of Jeff's inventions had in the past, Poo was fine with whatever inventions that Jeff made if they would help them defeat the PSI Aliens. After a few minutes, Jeff and Poo retreated to the back room so that they, too, could change into their normal clothes. For Jeff, that meant a white dress shirt with a green jacket and green pants, while for Poo that merely meant a white gi. Once they were finished, they emerged back into the living room. Ness and Paula had washed the dishes and put them away while Jeff and Poo were changing and washing up. Once the group was ready, they proceeded to walk out of the room and down to the main lobby. Once they arrived in the main lobby, they turned in their key, but Jeff instructed the Mr. Saturn, "Please keep that key in reserve. If we don't return in one week, you can make Room Six-oh-four available for others once more."

"I understand, Jeff. Thank you for staying at Saturn Hotel," the Mr. Saturn behind the desk replied. Ness and the others smiled and gave a wave to the friendly Mr. Saturn before departing the Saturn Hotel.

Before heading over to the Sky Runner II, though, Jeff went over to the lab to get some more items for the trip. He entered his lab and gathered two Advanced Bottle Rockets that the Mr. Saturns had built. He placed his Counter PSI Helmet on his head and he tested the interface with the targeting systems on the rockets. They seemed to work perfectly, locking onto two metal plates at the other end of the lab. He did not fire the rockets since he had so few of them at the moment. Once the test was completed, he took the two rockets and proceeded to stuff them in his backpack. He also left the PSI Disruptor at the lab, along with the blueprints, just in case something went wrong and they were killed on their mission. He wanted to make sure that the Mr. Saturns, and by extension, humanity, had a fighting chance against the PSI Aliens if the unthinkable happened. He was not anticipating facing off against any PSI Aliens at the Sanctuary on the moon, so he felt as if the PSI Disruptor would not be essential quite yet. Once he was ready, he left his lab and headed back over to the others. The group then headed over to the Sky Runner II.

When they arrived, they saw that Giygas was already there, overseeing the last touches to the Sky Runner II. Jeff had made certain that the Sky Runner II had improved armaments, with more advanced rockets for the rocket pods, as well as replacing four of the air-to-air missiles with low kiloton yield shield penetrator fusion missiles developed by Mr. Saturns. Unlike Earth designed nuclear fusion missiles, the Mr. Saturns' missiles did not use an atomic bomb to slam the hydrogen atoms together. Instead they used lasers, which resulted in a powerful, but cleaner, explosion. Also, Jeff still had ten air-to-air missiles placed inside the weapons bay so that they would be able to shoot down any evasive enemy ships that tried to attack. Once the group had assembled, the group filed onto the ship with Ness leading the way, followed by Paula, then Jeff, next Poo, and finally Giygas. Once they were onboard the ship, the boarding ramp retracted. The Mr. Saturns scattered as the Sky Runner II started its engines, a low hum sounding as the ship started. The flying saucer proceeded to rise into the air. Once it was a few hundred feet off the ground, the ship rocketed skyward, leaving the Mr. Saturns around the valley staring up into space, offering their prayers for the success of the Chosen Four's mission and for their safe return.

Not far away from the valley, Goog watched as his son had boarded the Sky Runner II. He knew that the Chosen Four and Giygas's target was the Sanctuary on the moon. He also knew that unless the Mr. Saturns or Jeff had packed spacesuits onto the Sky Runner II, that they would have to stop off at Luna Base to pick up the spacesuits that would be necessary for them to gain access to the Sanctuary. It did not matter, though. He figured that the defenses around Luna would be sufficient to shoot down the enemy craft. And if they weren't, Luna Base was staffed by Starman Warriors and Starman Deluxes. There was no way that the Chosen Four would be able to get by that gauntlet. That would only leave Giygas, and while Giygas was by far the strongest PSI Lord ever born, he was not stronger than his entire species. Heck, even a dozen or so Elite PSI Lords should be enough to beat him, and that was before talking about Giegue, or Goog, himself. Giygas would die, one way or the other. Goog then proceeded to teleport away from the valley and return to the Flagship.

Onboard the Sky Runner II, Jeff was guiding the ship through the upper atmosphere so that it would be able to escape Earth's gravity. The inertial dampers allowed the group to walk around the cockpit cabin without difficulty. All the same, though, Ness and the others remained at their stations until they reached orbit, which did not take long at all. Throughout the ride, the others looked out into the clouds, seeing the clouds part as they barreled through them. Eventually, they saw the sky darken and the stars light up. They had left Earth's atmosphere. Once they achieved orbit, Jeff activated the artificial gravity and turned towards Giygas, saying, "Giygas, would you take over for a bit? There are some things I need to do in the back."

"Certainly," Giygas replied, more cheerfully than normal. Giygas then proceeded to replace Jeff as he went back into the main cabin. Before Jeff went into the cabin, he called over to the others, saying, "Hey Ness, Paula, Poo, could I see you for a moment?"

The others rose from their stations and went back into the cabin with Jeff. Once inside the cabin, the door shut. Jeff got out his Counter PSI Helmet and told the others, "I'm going to need you to use your psychic abilities. I need to calibrate this helmet so that it won't interfere with your ability to use your powers."

The others nodded. Jeff turned the helmet on and the psychics activated their powers, though they did so at a low level so that they would not waste a great deal of energy. At first, they were unable to power their psychic abilities, due to the interference coming from the Counter PSI Helmet. As such, Ness and the others did their best to adapt for the presence of the helmet and to overcome its effects. At first, they were not successful. Ness and the others tried again. Again, they had no success. Ness and the others tried to power an attack and use their other abilities, such as telepathy and telekinesis for the better part of an hour. All the while, Jeff tried to tinker with the helmet. Ness, however, stopped him, saying, "No, don't. We'll eventually overcome the device. Don't risk adjusting the device to make this easier on us and risk it not being effective against the PSI Aliens. This helmet could very well be the weapon we need to overcome them when we go to face them head on."

Jeff quickly stopped tinkering with the helmet and waited as they continued to try to overcome the helmet's effects. While he was waiting, Jeff decided to go work on some other inventions and even improve a Multi Bottle Rocket to advance it into an Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket.

Eventually, Ness was able to power a weak ball of PSI Rockin in his hand. He grinned and checked on the others. So far, they were still having trouble. He then focused his attention on the Multi Bottle Rocket that Jeff was working on. He reached out with his telekinetic abilities and attempted to grab the rocket. While the rocket trembled and slid off of Jeff's workbench, Ness was unable to call it into his hands, and the rocket softly landed on the floor. The farther away from the helmet it was, though, the faster it was reaching him. Jeff noticed the rocket sliding off the table and tried to catch it. When it hit the floor, he picked it up and tried to put it back on the table, but he could feel the psychic tug of Ness's power and the rocket soon leapt out of his hands and soon, it flew over to Ness and into his hands.

Jeff looked up and saw Ness's eyes glowing. "Good work Ness, you're making progress."

Paula and Poo looked over at Ness, who was pulling the bottle rocket over to him. Once the rocket arrived in his hand, he went over to Jeff and handed it back to him, saying, "Here. Sorry if I caused you any inconvenience."

"Not at all," Jeff replied.

Paula and Poo then resolved to do their best to overcome the effects of the Counter PSI Helmet. It took Paula another five minutes before she could power a small ball of flame in her hand. She then decided to try her luck with telepathy. She did not like scanning people's minds without their permission, but this would be the ultimate test, in her mind, to see whether or not she had overcome the device. Paula then proceeded to ask Jeff, "Jeff, is it okay for me to try to read your mind?"

Her question jolted Jeff from his seat at the table. "What, oh, it's you," he said groggily. "What did you want again?"

"I wondered if it was okay for me to try to read your mind," Paula answered. "I need to see if I've overcome this helmet of yours."

Jeff was hesitant to let Paula into his mind. He did not want Paula to know all of his little secrets. However, he knew that this would be the best test, so he replied, "Yes. But please just make it a cursory scan."

"Okay," Paula replied. Her eyes then began to glow and she tried to go into Jeff's mind. At first, his mind was closed to her, a door forming over his mind, likely due to the Counter PSI Helmet. She used her abilities to open the door. After opening the door, she psychically walked through and entered Jeff's mind. When she entered, the images in his mind, even the close surface images were blurred with static, as if they were being shown on television screens, but the channels were being blocked. She then pushed again and a few of the images seemed to get clearer, particularly his concern for his family. In that memory, he was thinking of him and his parents having a picnic in Saturn Valley. His mother was preparing the picnic while his father, Dr. Andonuts, was still working on one of his inventions. She quickly retreated and took a glance at one of the screens a ways back. That was a more guarded memory. His more guarded memories were still blank to her. She did not press further, though, wishing to honor his request.

Paula then left his mind, confident that she could now use her powers. She still powered a snowflake of psychic energy to ensure that she was on the right track. The snowflake of PSI Freeze formed without a problem.

Looking over at Poo, both Paula and Ness found several orbs of energy forming around the older teen. He was powering a PSI Starstorm attack. So far, eight stars had formed. He opened his eyes and the group could see them glowing. Poo looked at them and said, "I am trying to form eight stars. Have they all formed?"

Ness and Paula nodded.

Poo gave a satisfied smile. "Good," he said as he powered down the attack. He then powered a Starstorm Omega attack and dozens of stars formed around him. Both Ness and Paula's eyes went wide with surprise. The blue stars remained stationary around Poo as more stars formed. Eventually, he powered down the attack and his eyes returned to normal. "How was that?" he asked.

"Great," the two other psychic teens said in unison.

The teens proceeded to test themselves until using their psychic powers around Jeff when his helmet was active was second nature. Once they had finished the tests, Jeff turned off his helmet and proceeded to go back into the cockpit. He was followed by the other members of the Chosen Four. Once they returned to the cockpit, Giygas turned around and left his seat, allowing Jeff to replace him. As Jeff took his seat, Giygas gave his report. "So far, no problems. We are well on schedule for our arrival at the moon early tomorrow morning, your local time."

"Good," Jeff responded. "You should go and get some rest. We'll need to sleep before we arrive at the moon."

"Thank you for the offer, but I'm fine," Giygas told Jeff. "I can go for a long time without rest." With that, Giygas took his station at the rear of the cockpit cabin.

The rest of the day passed without any difficulty. The group had not encountered any enemy vessels in orbit or in the space between the Earth and the moon so far. During the trip, when Jeff went to take a rest in the cabin, Giygas followed Jeff into the cabin. When the door slid closed, Jeff turned around and found Giygas standing there in front of him.

"May I help you, Giygas?" Jeff asked, his voice full of apprehension.

Giygas nodded. "Yes, you may. Earlier during the day, I lost telepathic contact with you. I always maintain a cursory telepathic sensation of everyone around me, just in case something happens or an intruder comes onboard. Think of it as an automatic defense. Well, I lost contact with you and the entirety of the cabin shortly after you came back here with the others. What were you doing back here?"

Jeff did not know what to say at first. Giygas had shown that he was a loyal member of the team, despite his poor performance during the Sanctuary battle in Lava Mountain. Still, the fact that Giygas had been practically absent during that battle troubled him. In Jeff's eyes he had redeemed himself, somewhat, when he took down that stricken City Smasher, destroying it so that it would not crash into Ness's shield, overloading it and destroying Saturn Valley when it fell. As such, he decided to give Giygas the benefit of the doubt. "I was testing a new invention back here. It's this, the Counter PSI Helmet," he said, taking out the helmet. "I needed to know whether or not it could completely block an enemy's psychic powers. It was successful."

This piqued Giygas's curiosity. "A Counter PSI Helmet, eh?" he said, studying the helmet carefully. "Can this helmet be overcome?"

Jeff nodded. "Yes. Eventually, after enough exposure, a person should be able to overcome its effects and be able to use their powers again, though it would take a long time for a psychic to be able to function at his or her normal strength."

Giygas gave a suppressed grin. "It's a weapon for use against my people, isn't it," he said.

Jeff nodded again. "We need to have an edge when we go up against your people's fleet. This Counter PSI Helmet will give us this edge. Even if it's only temporary, that could be all we really need."

"Yes," Giygas said. "But it would be of little use if it also disrupted the powers of your allies as well."

"I know," Jeff agreed. "Fortunately, I've been able to work out a few kinks."

"I want to get acclimated to the helmet and its effects," Giygas stated.

Jeff looked at Giygas almost suspiciously. "Okay," he replied hesitantly. "It's going to take a while for you to be able to get through the helmet's effects.

"I know," Giygas replied. "Besides, this will be a good opportunity for you to test your invention against the enemy it's designed to go up against. Using my performance as a base, you can see just how long it will take for a PSI Lord to overcome the effects of the helmet."

Jeff could see Giygas's point. So far, he had only tested the device against his human friends. With his helmet being used against a PSI Alien, he would be able to gauge its effectiveness against the rest of Giygas's people. Jeff then placed the helmet on his head and turned it on. It took a few minutes to fully overcome the effects of the helmet, but in the end, he was able to do so. Once he had overcome the effects of the helmet, Giygas powered an emerald green ball of PSI Special for a second and then powered it down. He looked over at Jeff and said, "Your helmet will be effective against my people, but don't rely on it too much. It won't take long for them to overcome the effects of the helmet once they realize what you're doing and then they'll be able to overcome your helmet. Your helmet will have much more of an effect on the Starmen and lesser psychics that my people use as troops."

Jeff deactivated the helmet and took it off. He then put the helmet in his backpack as he took rested before returning to go back out to the cockpit and guide the ship to the moon.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. At six o'clock, according to their watches and the clocks in the cockpit and in the main cabin, they went to eat their dinner, while Giygas piloted the ship. After they had eaten, Giygas got his chance to eat. He had taken a liking to various types of noodles, so he often had noodles for his meals and snacks. Promptly at nine o'clock at night, the Chosen Four went to bed as a whole, leaving Giygas, who rested for a couple of hours beforehand, to pilot the ship. The others trusted him to be able to keep them out of danger. All through the night, the Chosen Four slept without difficulty, while Giygas piloted the ship. Also, while Giygas was piloting the ship, he encountered no enemy ships at all, which surprised him. He had thought that the PSI Lord fleet would have at least made it to the Earth's moon by now and would have sent advanced scouts in order to identify any of Earth's spaceborne defenses or mines. As it was, though, it looked as if the PSI Lord fleet had not yet arrived at the moon, so Giygas expected them to be in the clear, save for the defenses around Luna Base.

The next morning, if it could be called morning in the void of space, the four teens awoke at around eight o'clock A.M. Each of the teens awakened fully rested and relaxed, a feeling that they had not had in quite a while, despite having rested in hotels that had rooms far more luxurious than the cabin of a flying saucer that was not all that much larger than a Fighter UFO. The teens casually went through their normal routine of washing up and eating some breakfast before going out into the cockpit. They had eaten and washed in silence, each of the teens focusing on the mission at hand. There would be plenty of time for discussion. Now, they just wanted to think.

Once the teens were in the cockpit, Jeff relieved Giygas, who went back to the main cabin to get some rest, himself. The group saw the moon growing in size as they approached the celestial body. Jeff activated his long-range sensors to see if there were any enemy ships approaching. Sure enough, he spotted four Fighter UFOs on an intercept course a thousand kilometers away. They were still out of range of the energy cannons, but the enemy was closing in fast. Jeff considered using his missiles, but decided against it. He did not know what enemies he would face in the orbit of the moon, so he decided that it would be better to use his energy cannons to take down the enemy and conserve his missiles for later use. He turned back to Paula and Poo and called, "Hey guys, we've got four incoming enemies. You know what to do."

Paula and Poo nodded as joysticks each popped out of their consoles and holographic HUDs appeared. The squadron of Fighter UFOs quickly approached. Jeff and the others were counting down the seconds until they got within firing range. Paula and Poo already had their fingers on the triggers as they began to target the incoming craft. The second the Fighter UFOs got within firing range of the energy cannons, the two opened fire on the Fighter UFOs. Scarlet lances lit up space as they streaked towards the Fighter UFOs. The first Fighter UFO was raked with scarlet energy fire. The first two bolts were enough to collapse its shields while the other two burned two massive holes into the ship. Not being in the atmosphere was a temporary blessing since it would not crash into the ground. However, the two blasts had disabled the craft's main power and thrust, so it was stuck on its current trajectory and unable to maneuver. A subsequent volley of bolts tore through the stricken craft and shattered it. A second Fighter UFO came towards the craft and Paula targeted her dorsal quad energy cannon straight at the UFO. Again, two bolts were sufficient to collapse the shields of the craft, while the third bolt burned a hole through the underside of the craft, which emerged from the craft's cockpit window. The Starman Super and the Elite Mook piloting the craft that were not instantly vaporized by the energy bolt were immediately blown out into space due to the decompression, left to float in their icy grave. The craft continued on its way through space as Paula and Poo quickly blew apart the third and fourth Fighter UFOs that were preparing to make an attack run. The Sky Runner II had fought another battle and once again emerged victorious. Once the battle was over, Jeff continued piloting the Sky Runner II towards the moon.

The moon grew larger in the cockpit window as they neared gray satellite. Jeff checked his scanners but only found two Heavy Assault UFOs within sensor range of the ship. Jeff decided to not give the UFOs a chance to attack and he destroyed them at long range with two missiles that were disgorged from the belly of the Sky Runner II. After the missiles vaporized the Heavy Assault UFOs, that supposedly had stronger defenses than the fighter UFOs, Jeff continued on his trek towards the moon.

After a while, Giygas stepped out into the cockpit and looked around at the crew. He went up to Jeff and asked, "This just occurred to me. Did you acquire any spacesuits for your trek to the Sanctuary?"

"What do you mean?" Jeff asked. "Why would we need spacesuits? I thought the Sanctuary was inside Luna Base." He did not like where this was going.

Giygas shook his head. "No, the Sanctuary is a ways away from the base," he explained. "Luna Base is merely a science station and communications relay so that we can make contact with the rest of the fleet. Its sole science duties were to study captured psychics and to breed and engineer the new generation of Starmen. It is actually of little importance to my people now that the fleet has arrived and will reinforce the forces already on Earth."

Jeff, Paula, and Poo groaned at the revelation. This would make the trip a little more complicated. "Don't worry," Giygas assured them. "Luna Base has more than enough suits for everyone, and several suits designed for humans. We should be able to find four suits that would fit you and allow you to go out to the Sanctuary without you freezing or suffocating."

Giygas's assurances did not allay any of Jeff's annoyance. "This would have been useful information for us to know!" he roared. "I could have asked the Mr. Saturns for some spacesuits so we could simply fly on over to the Sanctuary itself and scrap the base."

"That would not be a good idea," Giygas warned.

"Why not?" Jeff asked harshly.

"Because there are still human psychics at the base," Giygas answered. "The children that you were looking for were initially taken to Mount Itoi, but once the initial studies were completed, the children were taken to Luna Base. This is where the children that are controlling the new psychic robots are located. If the base is attacked, though, the children might be taken away. We should focus on getting those suits. If the children are taken, they'll be taken back to Mount Itoi."

"How big is this base?" Paula asked. Her voice was much kinder than Jeff's.

"Not large," Giygas answered. "It's about as big as the Snow Wood Boarding House that Jeff stayed in." Indeed, Ness and the others remembered that that was not very large at all. "It is still crewed by some of the strongest Starmen, though. While the science station isn't all that large, when it was built, it was quite important. We also had several subterranean facilities that were used for the breeding and engineering of Starmen. They are no longer in use and have since been scuttled."

When there seemed to be nothing further to say, the group then focused their attention back on the moon. The moon now filled the cockpit window and Jeff proclaimed, "Alright guys, I'm beginning my approach." Turning to Giygas, he asked, "Where do I land and do I need a special code to enter the base?"

"There is a landing platform on the upper level of the base," Giygas answered. "There is a magnetic shield that allows you breathe when on the landing platform. In fact, the cargo area isn't all that far from the landing pad."

Giygas then went to the copilot's seat, which Ness vacated, and proceeded to instruct Jeff on what he had to look for. As they were approaching, four Transport UFOs rocketed up towards the Sky Runner II, quickly followed by two Fighter UFOs. However, these UFOs did not seem interested in a fight, and neither did the Fighter UFOs. When these UFOs caught sight of the Sky Runner II, they fled, rather than risk engaging them. This action puzzled Jeff and the others.

"What was that about?" Jeff asked curiously. "Why didn't they try to attack?"

"Yeah," Paula noted. "Even if the Transport UFOs didn't want a fight, why did the Fighter UFOs leave us alone. They were within point blank range of us and could have given us a fight."

"An even better question is why we didn't detect them until they were right beneath us?" Ness said in a dour tone.

"That's what I'm wondering too," Giygas agreed. "I could sense none of the occupants onboard those Fighter UFOs at all."

"So what now?" Paula asked. "We still continue, don't we?"

"We have no choice," Poo replied. "Not unless you want to scrap the mission. There's no way the PSI Alien fleet isn't pretty close now. I don't know why they seem to be taking their time, but they are, which gives us an advantage. We have to capitalize on it."

The others agreed. With no further discussion, the rest of the crew reassumed their posts and proceeded to assist Jeff in guiding the Sky Runner II down to the base. The Sky Runner II proceeded to decelerate as it got closer and closer to the moon's surface. Once it was only a couple hundred feet above the surface of the moon, they proceeded to circle the moon until they found an artificial structure. Off in the distance, the group managed to spot a gray building with a large spire on top. On top of the spire was an antenna that looked like a radar dish. Jeff got the impression that that was no radar dish, though. To him, it looked more like a tractor beam or a mass projector. Still, Giygas was quite surprised at the stunning revelation.

As they approached the base, Giygas began to scan the interior of the base in order to find out the strength of the current enemy force. What he found, though, was much more shocking. He could feel Sanctuary energy emanating from the top of the spire.

"Guys, something's come up," he said apprehensively.

"What is it?" Paula asked.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that the Sanctuary had been moved. It's no longer at its current location a few hundred yards away from base. It's now near the spire of the base, itself."

"That changes things," Jeff said. "Now we might not need those suits."

"Don't get cocky," Giygas warned. "If the Sanctuary's been moved, then there's a good chance that there could be other changes as well. If I were you, I'd find the nearest landing platform you can. The base is not supposed to be all that tall, only a few stories, but it appears as if there have been some modifications made in the last few days. It is now at least ten stories tall."

Giygas then proceeded to scan the interior of the base, itself. He was surprised to find that there were far fewer Starmen and other staff at the base. It was as if it was already being evacuated. Wondering what was going on, Giygas scanned the first mind he came across, a Starman Deluxe. Good, he figured that the Starman Deluxe would know what was going on.

As Giygas began his scan of the unfortunate Starman Deluxe, he quickly saw that there was no bomb at the base, but that a secret project was being transferred back to Mount Itoi, away from the Sanctuary. Apparently, the Chosen Four and Giygas were being expected, but the enemy did not know when they would arrive. The project was important enough to warrant a large contingent of troops and scientists being present to make sure that nothing went wrong. As such, the base was currently understaffed, but that was of no concern. The fleet would be arriving soon and the purpose of Luna Base was completed. All they had to do now was to occupy the Chosen Four and Giygas until the fleet could arrive and finish them off. Still, the questions that were really bothering Giygas were not answered. Namely, how the base had literally grown in the last few days from being a pretty small warehouse to a tall structure that was more than ten stories tall.

Giygas then withdrew his scan and told the others, "The Starman and other staff at the base are expecting us, but they haven't detected us yet. The base is currently understaffed due to the departure of some important project. As such, the base is going to be abandoned and/or scrapped, which I find suspicious, given the recent modifications. The final mission of those left behind is to occupy us until the fleet arrives to finish us off, should they be unsuccessful in killing us in the process. I got no details on the Sanctuary location's moving, though. It appears as if the remaining personnel don't know about it either."

"Then it shouldn't be too difficult to get in and get to this Sanctuary," Poo stated.

"And hopefully the psychic children will still be there for us to rescue," Paula added.

The others nodded. Once the discussion was finished, they resumed their heading towards the base. Jeff raised the shields once they were within likely sensor range of the base, but they did not charge their weapons. They knew that a direct confrontation would be disastrous should the base be protected by energy cannons or missiles. As they neared the building, they saw that it looked like a square gray building that was made out of battleship armor with an antenna on top. There were few windows, and the windows that were there were quite small.

Jeff began his approach, apprehensive at first. The others waited to see what the reaction of those in the base would be, whether or not missiles would be launched at them or energy cannons of some sort would target the ship. There was also the potential of a Starman Deluxe or Warrior shooting them down with a PSI Starstorm barrage, an attack that might be able to get through the shields of their ship unopposed. This was when the Chosen Four were at their most vulnerable. Onboard the spaceship on an airless moon, the destruction of their ship would ensure their own death, or at the very least, force them to teleport back to Earth, which would deny them the Sanctuary since they would have to go through the entire PSI Alien fleet in order to get to the Eighth Sanctuary.

So far, the base was not taking any hostile or defensive action. Jeff went checked the sensors on his dashboard and found that no weapons had been deployed and the base was not locking on. However, he did not discount the possibility that if the base was armed that the Starmen in the base could just be waiting for the ship to get closer so they could get a clear shot.

The Sky Runner II decelerated as it got closer to the landing pad near the lowest floor of the base. Indeed, things had changed. They may have gotten a little more difficult. As they got closer to the base, Giygas opened his telepathic senses to see what he could glean from the base personnel. He found that the base had, indeed, detected the arrival of the Sky Runner II, though they had not been able to identify the alien craft yet. Giygas relayed the information to Ness and the others. Giygas also told them that the base did not have any active defense systems and that they were not in danger of being shot down. That calmed their minds a bit, but they knew were not out of the woods yet. The landing would only be the first part of this mission.

Jeff soon identified the landing pad where they would land and brought in the Sky Runner II towards the landing pad. Again, the group was ready for the worst, but the worst did not happen. The Sky Runner II was able to land on the pad without incident. The ship shook as it touched down on the landing pad. Once the ship landed, Jeff and the others rose from their stations and went to the back cabin to equip themselves. Ness made certain to get some more Super Bombs so that he could conserve his psychic energy for the Sanctuary Guardian Phanzo. Paula also gathered her weapons, including her new Holy Frying Pan, as well as her other items. Jeff also got his Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets for the battles that would be coming, as well as a supply of six regular Multi Bottle Rockets, along with three Super Bombs, just in case he needed to attack a powerful group of enemies but did not want to waste any of his precious Multi Bottle Rockets on them, since he was hoping to save the Multi Bottle Rockets for Phanzo. Lastly, Poo gathered his own arsenal of weapons and healing items, mostly consisting of his sword and his Magic Truffles, which would replenish his psychic energy. He also took a few Super Bombs with him so that he would have other options as well.

Once the team was fully equipped, they headed back out into the cockpit. There, Giygas was waiting for them. He told them, "The base has ten levels, not counting the spire. The base will mostly consist of a large inner room with several catwalks and ledges with access points. The journey to the spire will be long, but straightforward. Just follow the corridors and you should eventually reach the Sanctuary." He then went over to the ramp's hatch and said, "We should hurry. So far, the bay is pressurized and the magnetic field is holding. There's no telling how long that will last though."

With that, Jeff then lowered the boarding ramp and opened the boarding hatch. He then put his personal scanner and key to the ship in his pocket. He proceeded out of the ship and down onto the landing pad and checked his sensors. So far, there was a breathable atmosphere. Still he did not want to dillydally. He motioned for the others to quickly follow him into the base. They followed him off of the ship and when they were safely off, he had the boarding ramp retract and the hatch close. He also raised the shields over the ship so that there would not be any unwelcome saboteurs that tried to teleport onboard to plant a bomb. With that done, Jeff and the others rushed towards the door that would take them to the pressurized tunnel that would lead them to the base. They arrived at the door and as they stepped in front of it, it automatically slid open. The others passed through the door safely and found that the atmosphere on the other side was breathable. After they had gone through the door, it closed behind them. Now, all they had to do was get inside the base and find those suits, and hopefully rescue any of the kidnapped psychic children that may have still been in Luna Base in the process.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19:

The group made its through the tunnel and eventually arrived at the entrance to the base. The door slid open and the five proceeded to make their way inside the base. Once inside the base, the door closed behind them. The lower floors of the base seemed to mainly consist of a research center. Giygas immediately recognized this as the original base that had been built on the moon. The modifications had been made on top of this original structure. The lower levels were sparsely occupied, consisting of only a few Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors, along with some Mook Seniors, Greater Mooks, and Elite Mooks. Machines and consoles lined the floors and walls. Lights flashed along the wall and on computer screens. The Mooks were the first to notice the Chosen Four and Giygas. "Giygas!" one of the Elite Mooks cried out in surprise as he ran from his station to get a better look at the intruders and to try to stop them. Upon seeing the humans, he cried out, "Enemy psychics!"

"Yes," Giygas sneered. "Now die!" he cried as he extended his right hand and a beam of green energy erupted from his hand. The beam of energy traveled at the speed of light and burned through the Mook's lower eye on the top of his head. The Elite Mook, already dead, staggered backwards and fell to the ground, a smoking hole where his eye, and brain, had been.

Four other Mooks, Mook Seniors and Greater Mooks, left their stations to attack Ness and the others. The Mook Seniors each tried to glare at the heroes, which would instantly diamondize them. Ness and the others, however, managed to duck underneath their gaze and only the wall behind them was transformed into a wall of diamond that would be the envy of any human. Jeff then drew his Gaia Beam pistol and proceeded to shoot the Mook Senior in the eye, felling the creature. Due to the effects of Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet blocking their psychic powers, the other Mooks were having difficulty being able to focus their energy and launch any real attacks against Ness and the others. Ness and Poo responded by charging the Mooks and slashing at them and bashing them. Ness instantly appeared before his Elite Mook with his bat held high in the air. Ness brought the bat down on the Elite Mook's head instantly after appearing in front of the Mook. The Mook's head deformed with the impact of Ness's Legendary Bat as Ness heard the shattering of the Mook's bones and cartilage. The Mook fell to the floor, dead. Meanwhile, Poo was busy hacking apart the tentacled creatures. He appeared in front of his first opponent, a Mook Senior, and stabbed it in the eye on its head. The Mook soon fell over, dead, as Poo withdrew his blade and swung it in a wide arc, bisecting two more Mooks, one another Mook Senior and the second an Elite Mook. Paula also got a piece of the action as a Mook approached her and leered. Paula did not take kindly to the leer and without a word, swung her frying pan at the Mook's face. The Mook was too stunned at Paula's attack to respond and mount a proper defense. Paula smashed her Holy Frying Pan into the Mook's face and the Mook was stunned as he staggered back. Paula repeatedly hit the Mook until he fell to the floor, either unconscious or dead. Once the skirmish was over, the party continued to make its way around the research area.

More Mooks, and the Starmen occupying this level of the base, soon left their posts to engage the invading humans and their PSI Alien ally. Jeff drew his Gaia Beam pistol and immediately took aim at the nearest Elite Mook. He pulled the trigger and a scarlet beam of energy erupted from his pistol. The beam burned a hole in the Mook's eye on his head and the Mook fell to the floor, dead. Jeff then chose a second target and pulled the trigger once more. Again, another Mook fell. Still, there were at least eleven enemies present in this assault. Jeff would not be able to finish them all on his own. That was when Ness drew out a Super Bomb from his pocket. He pushed its activation button and tossed it over to the Elite Mooks. The bomb landed among the Mooks, who continued their charge, attempting, unsuccessfully, to use their psychic powers on Ness and the others. The bomb detonated just as the Elite Mooks realized that there was an explosive in their midst. The Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors had raised Shield Betas over themselves that would reflect the concussion and shrapnel away from them. Unfortunately, they merely reflected the concussions and shrapnel directed at them into the Elite Mooks, so the Elite Mooks got a double dose of the explosion. Needless to say, the Mooks were shredded by the shrapnel and the blast wave also inflicted horrible damage to the creatures. Those that were not blown apart by the explosion were killed by the other injuries that they had sustained. Jeff quickly noted that the Starmen on this level seemed to have already overcome the effects of the Counter PSI Helmet.

Meanwhile, the Starman Deluxes prepared to launch an attack of their own. They immediately began to power a PSI Starstorm barrage and unleash it at the heroes. Dozens of green energy orbs formed around the Starmen as they prepared to unleash their attack on the humans. Giygas immediately stepped out in front of them and raised a shield over himself and the party while Paula and Poo unleashed a stream of PSI Thunder at the Starmen in order to collapse their psychic counter shields. The PSI Thunder struck their shields and managed to not only collapse the shields, but also inflict damage to the psychic alien soldiers. Still, it was not nearly enough to take out the Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors. The Starmen continued to power their attacks and they soon unleashed them against Giygas and the others, not realizing that Giygas had raised a shield over the party.

Dozens of green orbs streaked towards the party, crossing the meters between the two forces in the blink of an eye. The stars stopped short of their target, though, being stopped by Giygas's shield, which flared a bright green for a second as the stars struck. The stars were then reflected back at their source, the six Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors that had launched the attacks. The stars fell among the now defenseless Starmen and exploded in their midst, disintegrating their bodies and causing massive damage to the computers and consoles in the base. Once the reflected volley of stars had detonated completely, there was nothing left of the Starmen.

After the skirmish, Ness and the others went to look for the nearest console that had not been damaged during the fighting, hoping that it would take them to the upper floor, and to the final Sanctuary. It did not take long for Jeff to find a console that was still functional. Even better was the fact that it had a map of the entire base, even the new section above the initial base. The only problem was that the instructions were written in Giygas's native language. Jeff called Giygas over to the console so that he could decipher its text. Giygas went on over to the console and Jeff asked, "Giygas, could you translate this for us?"

Giygas looked at the text and said, "Certainly. It indicates the number of troops remaining inside the base, as well as the status of the Psychic Robot Project."

"Well, what does it say?" Jeff blurted.

"It says that there are only a few dozen or so psychic soldiers left inside the base, before our current skirmish" Giygas responded. "Only about fourteen of them are Starman Deluxes or Starman Warriors. The rest of them are Mooks of various sorts, and most of the Mooks are on squads led by Starman Warriors or Starman Deluxes."

"Where are these enemies located?" Jeff asked.

"All around the base," Giygas responded. "Still, there are other enemies as well. There are animated Moon Stones, which are stones that try to attack you by flying into you, as well as some constructed Moon Rock Golems, golems made of the moon's surface that were brought to life by the Sanctuary Guardian, Phanzo."

"Any idea on their strengths?"

Giygas shook his head. "None. These are new enemies."

With that, Jeff whipped out his scanner and downloaded the map the scanner. The scanner automatically translated the map and Jeff studied it. He wanted to take the route that would lead them to the Sanctuary the quickest. He did not want to have to say here long. He soon found an elevator that would lead them to the fourth floor, a floor above the initial levels.

Jeff and Giygas quickly rejoined the party and told them about the information that they had found. Giygas then warned, "Be on your guard. The enemies here are likely only trying to get you to use up a lot of your energy fighting them so that Phanzo can kill you."

"Right," the others replied as they went over to the nearest elevator. Once they arrived, Giygas pushed the button to call the elevator. He then looked up at the upper levels and his eyes narrowed. He had sensed something.

"Be ready," he warned. "We've got company."

The others drew out their weapons. Sure enough, when the elevator arrived and opened, two Starman Warriors appeared. Upon seeing the humans, they drew their beam swords and ignited the weapons, but not before Jeff opened fire with his Gaia Beam pistol and Giygas fired some non-psychic energy bolts at them. They concentrated their fire on one of the Starmen and were quickly able to fell the Starman Warrior. The second Starman Warrior, however, was a little more difficult to deal with. His psychic shield protected him against all psychic attacks save for PSI Thunder, thus limiting their options. Still, it was now three-on-one, with Ness, Paula, and Poo facing off against the Starman Warrior. The Starman Warrior began the fight by trying to bring his blade down on Ness's head. Ness, however, was too quick for him and evaded the swing. Paula and Poo then simultaneously attacked the Starman, bashing and slashing at the Starman Warrior. Paula repeatedly brought her frying pan down on the Starman Warrior's head, while Poo stabbed the Starman in the chest. Paula's blows were enough to stagger the Starman Warrior, while Poo's stabs proved to be the deciding factor in the match. The Starman Warrior fell before Ness had even drawn his bat to enter the fray. Once the battle was over, Giygas and Poo stooped down to pick up the beam swords that the Starman Warriors had been using.

After Poo had picked up his beam sword, Giygas instructed him on the use of the beam sword. "The beam sword is a powerful close combat weapon, but it only has a limited amount of energy before it gives out and is useless, and it's battery can't be swapped out for another, so be careful about using it. Only deploy the blade when you need to use it."

Poo nodded and the group proceeded to board the elevator. Once they had gotten onboard, Giygas pushed the button that would lead them to the fourth floor, the highest floor that this elevator would take them. They emerged from the elevator and soon found themselves in a corridor. Inside the corridor, they were faced with two teams of Mooks, each led by a Starman Deluxe, on either side of them. Giygas and the others steeled themselves for the attacks that were to come. Paula was about to raise a psychic shield over the party when Giygas called her off, saying, "No, let me handle this! We can't afford for you to waste your psychic energy right now."

Paula nodded and she let Giygas handle the situation. He stared the battle by raising a perfect counter shield over the party. The Starman Deluxes each fired a blast of PSI Thunder at the shield. The Mooks also joined in, firing blasts of PSI Fire and PSI Freeze at Giygas and the humans. Apparently, these psychics were quickly able to overcome the effects of Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet. Unfortunately for the aliens, Giygas's shield was able to reflect PSI Thunder attacks. As such, the lightning from the Starmen struck the shield and was instantly reflected back at them, as were the attacks launched by the Mooks. The lightning struck the Starmen, collapsing their own psychic shields, and they writhed in agony as they suffered a direct hit from their own attack. Still, the psychic strength of the Starmen allowed them to survive the initial attack. The Mooks were not so fortunate. The reflected attacks from the Mooks struck each and every Mook and either froze them solid, or flash fried them. After all of the reflected attacks struck, all that were left of the Mook ranks were blocks of ice and piles of ashes, with the Starmen faring little better. Giygas quickly finished off the Starman Deluxes with a blast of PSI Fire, incinerating the Starmen, reducing them to ashes.

Once the battle was over, the group studied the map. "There's a stairwell down at the other end of the hallway," Jeff told everyone. "That stairwell should take us to the top floor and to the spire where the Sanctuary is located."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ness proclaimed. "Let's go!"

As the group proceeded down the hall, feminine shaped robots similar to the Juana robots painted green and silver came at them. Jeff quickly dealt with them by tossing a Super Bomb over at the robots. The bomb landed among the robots before they were ready to attack and by the time they noticed the bomb it was too late. The bomb detonated and shattered the robots. Shrapnel from the bomb and the robots ricocheted off of the walls and all that was left of the robots was burnt scrap. Ness and the others passed the shattered remains of the robots and continued towards the hallway. Along the way, they passed two alcoves. As they passed the alcoves, Jeff fired his Gaia Beam pistol into one, felling an Elite Mook, and Paula fired a blast of PSI Fire into another, melting a pink Madeline robot to slag.

After the group arrived at the doors to the stairwell, they stopped for a moment so that Paula and Giygas could scan the stairwell. Opening their telepathic senses they identified the presence of several Elite Mooks, who seemed to be aware of several other robots, mostly of the Colin and Kevin lines. The Mooks did not know the psychic powers, if any, that the robots could use, though. After they had finished the scan, they telepathically relayed the information back to Ness and the others and they then pushed the doors open and proceeded on through.

Once they entered the stairwell, they were met with the long flights of stairs that would take them to the top level. Before they even began to climb, though, streams of fire and snowflakes of ice rained down upon the group, forcing Paula to raise a PSI Shield Omega. She just barely managed to raise the shield in time as the attacks splashed against her shield harmlessly and were immediately reflected back at the Elite Mooks that had launched them against her. The Mooks tried to dodge their reflected attacks, but were not all that effective in doing so. Two Mooks were set ablaze by their own attacks and a third was frozen solid by a reflected PSI Freeze attack. The burning Mooks flailed their tentacles as they fell down the stairwell, still burning, screeching unintelligibly. Jeff gave them quick mercy with a shot to the head, each, ending their suffering in the living world. However, that was not before Jeff identified the final Mook that had fired on them from above and placed an energy bolt in the Mook's third eye on the top of his head. That Mook also tumbled down the stairwell, and came to a rest on the landing.

The group proceeded to make their way up the stairwell. On the first flight of stairs, they encountered no further resistance. They quickly went up the next flight of stairs after reaching the fifth floor. On this flight of stairs, a robot that looked like a suit of armor met them. This suit of armor was not one of the Borgs. It resembled a male Juana, but instead of being maroon, it was blue. "A Colin," Giygas muttered. "Be careful, he knows some powerful elemental PSI."

As if to prove Giygas's point, the Colin immediately pointed his spear at the party and a stream of fire emerged. Ness stood in front of the party and raised a shield over himself, trying to ascertain whether or not this flame was psychic or normal. His question was answered when the flame breached his shields without even slowing down. Ness proceeded to use his telekinesis to try to keep back the psychic flames, but it was wearing on him. He did not know how to cast proper PSI Shields, so this was the best that he could hope for, and his makeshift shield was nowhere as effective as a real psychic shield would have been. Using his telekinesis, he managed to hold back the flames, but he could already feel the flesh on his hands puckering and turning red, his hands were being burned by the heat that was radiating through his telekinetic shield. Still, he managed to keep the flames back.

Realizing that the flames were psychic, Paula raised a psychic shield to protect Ness, allowing him to use Lifeup to heal his injured hands. Meanwhile, Poo decided that he had had enough of the robot and he decided to fry it with a blast of PSI Thunder. Lightning leapt from his fingers and immediately struck the robot, shorting out its circuits and leaving blackened burn marks on its metal skin. Jeff added his own weight to Poo's attack when he punched a few holes into the robot using his Gaia Beam pistol. The scarlet energy bolts, combined with Poo's lightning, were too much for the robot and it fell to the ground and rolled down the stairs to the landing below, its body sparking and lightning still arcing across its body. Ness and the others then rushed forward and made their way up the stairs until they came to the sixth floor. Once they they continued on, all they found was an Elite Mook that looked ready for battle foolishly standing against the five of them. Giygas quickly alleviated the alien of his battle readiness by stretching out his hand and vaporizing the creature with a single bolt of energy. Smirking, Giygas continued to go on. The others followed; glad to not have to be the ones fighting him.

On the next flight of stairs they encountered a group of Mooks and a couple of suits of armor that were green, rather than the blue of the Colins or the pink of the Madelines. "These are Kevins," Giygas told them. "These robots know PSI Beam and Shield Off, which will lower any shield or psychic shield that you raise."

The humans stood firm. Since there were no Starmen present, they were able to focus on fighting the robots and the Mooks. Before the Mooks or robots could launch an attack, Ness powered a blast of PSI Rockin and unleashed it at the robots and Elite Mooks. The Mooks, who seemed to be affected by the Counter PSI Helmet, simply stood there and did nothing, while the robots seemed to be having troubles of their own. They merely pointed their spears at the group and fired a series of energy bolts that came nowhere close to hitting the teens. Ness's PSI Rockin, however, was much more accurate. He fired the blast of Rocking right at the enemy force and as it landed among them, it detonated, engulfing them in a field of scarlet psychic energy. After a few seconds, the globe of psychic energy dissipated, leaving nothing but dust and vapor. The group then proceeded past the scene of the battle and up to the eighth floor.

Once they reached the eighth floor, when they went to climb the next set of stairs, they encountered two Moon Rock Golems and a quartet of Moon Stones. The Moon Stones rocketed towards Giygas and the others, but the PSI Alien raised a shield to protect the party. The Moon Stones struck the shield and shattered against it, Giygas giving a smirk at the scene. Next, the Moon Rock Golems came charging towards the party. Unfortunately, they were restricted to close combat attacks, something that was a tremendous liability against psychics like the ones that they were facing now. Even Jeff was a serious threat to them, which he demonstrated when he drew his Gaia Beam pistol and started firing at one of the charging golems. Jeff fired a series of blasts into the chest and head of one of the golems, each one of them blasting sizeable holes into the golem. After five blasts, the golem's structure was so riddled with holes that it could no longer maintain its integrity. The golem fell apart, breaking off pieces of its arms and legs as it fell. Jeff fired one last blast at the golem's head, shattering it, just to make sure that the creature was dead. Giygas had less trouble with the other golem. A single green blast of energy was sufficient to vaporize the stone creature. Once the battle was over, the group continued on its way to the ninth floor.

Once they arrived at the ninth floor, Giygas, Paula, and Poo could sense the Sanctuary energy getting closer. They were close. The tenth floor was the floor with the access to the Sanctuary on top of the base. On the ninth floor in the stairwell, they encountered no resistance at all. This caused the group to go up the next flight of stairs cautiously. Ness and the others feared that they were being led right into a trap. Still, as they ascended the stairwell, there were no signs of enemies at all. Paula extended her telepathic senses to try to ascertain whether or not the aliens had set up a trap, and soon reported back, "I'm only sensing two Starman Deluxes and two Starman Warriors on the tenth floor right before the access stairs that lead to the roof."

The others nodded, acknowledging that they heard her. That made little sense. Even though Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors were quite powerful, with Giygas assisting the humans, the Starmen were outnumbered, and overmatched. They suspected that there might be some robots present, but there was no guarantee of that. Eventually, the group made it to the tenth floor. Once there, they approached the doors and peered through. They saw nothing of note in the dark hallway, but Paula still sensed the presence of those Starmen. The group took a deep breath before they proceeded to enter the small corridor tenth floor of the base.

Once they entered the corridor, the group came face to face with the four Starmen. Two Starmen pulled out beam swords and ignited them, a snap hiss ringing through the air. The leader of the Starmen, a Starman Deluxe, soon stepped in front of his cohorts and called over to Ness and the others, "You cannot pass. This area is off limits to all, including you, Master Giygas," the Starman said, tilting his head towards Giygas. "We are under orders from Giegue to kill all intruders. You shall now die!" the Starman roared.

The Starmen immediately raised psychic counter shields over themselves, which Giygas sensed immediately. _Everyone,_ he telepathically called out to them. _The Starmen have psychic counter shields over their bodies. No psychic power save for PSI Thunder will work on them_.

_Thanks for the heads up,_ Paula replied. With that, Jeff pulled out one of his Multi Bottle Rockets and targeted the lead Starman Deluxe with the weapon. Once the target was acquired, he launched the bottle rocket at the alien. The rocket split off into multiple warheads, each of them powerful enough to annihilate a tank. The Starmen tried to raise a normal counter shield but it was to no avail. The Counter PSI Helmet that Jeff was wearing was inhibiting his ability to utilize his psychic powers. As a result, when the warheads struck the Starman Deluxe, he had no defenses up. Each warhead exploded against the skin of the Starman Deluxe and the combination of warheads proceeded to blow apart the Starman Deluxe. The rest of the Starmen retreated for a moment before noticing Ness, Paula, and Poo rolling Super Bombs their way. The explosive force of each individual Super Bomb was not as great as the Multi Bottle Rocket, but the Super Bombs had a larger blast radius and could inflict massive damage all by themselves. Having to tackle three such weapons would be difficult. The Starmen tried to raise a normal shield over themselves to protect themselves, but Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet still contained their psychic abilities, or rather, their ability to raise a shield at least. Since the Starmen could not raise a shield, they decided to try attacking their enemies. They stretched out their arms and tried to perform PSI Fire Omega. Balls of flame formed at the ends of their tentacle-like arms and they found that they could at least give a good attack before they died. As such, they unleashed massive streams of flame against the Chosen Four. Ness had already powered a Lifeup Omega so when the flames hit, the injuries that were being sustained by the party were already being regenerated. The Starmen's attack abruptly stopped when the Super Bombs exploded, shredding them with shrapnel and blowing them apart in the process. While they would have survived one Super Bomb going off, the three of them together were far too much for the Starmen to handle. Once the battle was over, the group took stock of themselves. Ness, Paula, and Poo quickly ate a Magic Truffle each in order to restore their spent psychic energy. They wanted to be at full strength for the battle against Phanzo.

Once they were prepared they proceeded towards the doorway that would take them to the Sanctuary. Before they reached the doorway, though, an enemy appeared in front of them. The humans gasped at the revelation of this enemy, while Giygas merely grimaced. Standing in front of them was a PSI Alien that looked a lot like Giygas, only his skin was a little grayer than Giygas's, who was milky white. The humans' eyes went wide with both terror as well as excitement.

"My gosh," Paula stammered. "Is that Giegue?"

"No," Giygas growled. "That's my father."

"I cannot allow you to pass to the next Sanctuary," Goog stated matter-of-factly.

Giygas glared at his father and then glanced over to the humans, who were drawing out their weapons. Jeff was even beginning to activate his Counter PSI Helmet once again to try to block the powers of Goog. Giygas shook his head subtly, trying to make sure that his father would not notice what Jeff was trying to do while still warning Jeff that it would be a bad idea to try to jam his father's psychic powers at the moment. Jeff apparently took the hint, for he turned off his Counter PSI Helmet, but he still had his Gaia Beam pistol at the ready. The team was looking forward to starting this battle, for they knew that with Giygas on their side that they could win. It was then that Giygas stood in front of the group and glanced back towards them.

"Go," he told them forcefully.

This took the group by surprise. "What?" Ness blurted.

"You heard me!" Giygas retorted harshly. "Go! Get to the Sanctuary. I'll hold off my father."

"Let us help you!" Paula called out to Giygas. "Even if you can beat him on your own, it would be better if we all worked together to beat your father. That way, you won't risk suffering too great an injury."

"It's too late to play it safe," Giygas told her. "My father's presence here means that the PSI Lord fleet is nearly at the moon. You have to get to that Sanctuary now, before the fleet arrives and sets up guards around the Sanctuary. This is your chance to get the power you need to face down and defeat my people." He then paused for a moment. "This exact circumstance was what I was afraid of all this time," he finally told them. "I never wanted to have to face down my father, my own flesh and blood. But I have no choice, and neither do you if you want to save your people. Now go. I can beat him! Take on Phanzo. I have faith that you four can defeat him and whatever else might be waiting for you."

"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that, my son," Goog said knowingly.

Still, the group hesitated before going. "Go!" Giygas ordered. "This will be your only chance!"

After a moment, Ness finally went forward to try to get around Goog. Goog, however, cut off Ness's path. He was then abruptly thrown aside telekinetically by Giygas, who shoved him into a wall. Ness then proceeded to make his way towards the stairs, quickly followed by Paula, Jeff, and Poo. While they made their escape, Giygas engaged his father in battle.

Goog charged at his son as Giygas pulled one of the fallen Starman Warriors' beam sword to him. He ignited the blade and slashed at his father, who deftly dodged the swipe. Goog then powered a ball of lightning in his right hand and unleashed it against his son. Giygas intercepted the blast of lightning and caught it in his free hand. He absorbed the lightning and soon, he raised a lightning shield over his body. As his body crackled with electricity, he drew his first beam sword and ignited it. His father pulled the second Starman Warrior's beam sword to him and ignited the blade. The two then charged each other, holding their blades high in the air. As they closed in on each other, the two fighters swung their blades at each other. All of the blades collided and a loud, grinding hiss echoed throughout the hallway.

"Why are you doing this, my son?" Goog asked. "I offered you amnesty and a place back within our ranks. I was ready to make a claim that you should be the leader of our people rather than your brother."

"Because I have to," Giygas responded coldly. He then proceeded to perform a reverse strike on Goog, who caught Giygas's blade with his own. Giygas still had an extra blade, though, and he used it to try to cut Goog in half. Just before the blade would have connected with Goog, the PSI Lord disappeared from Giygas's sight. Giygas then vanished from his own location as Goog reappeared just above Giygas's previously vacated location and brought down his beam sword, stabbing it into the ground. Giygas reappeared a few feet away and powered a blast of PSI Thunder. He unleashed the blast of PSI Thunder before his father could recover and raise a shield to block it. The PSI Thunder struck his father, throwing him into the air. Goog was thrown into the wall, where he collided with the metallic wall, leaving an indentation, and falling to the floor, lightning still sparking across his body. Goog was slow to rise as Giygas slowly neared his father, as if to gloat over his father's predicament.

"You don't have to carry through with this," his father said, breathing heavily. "You don't have to fight me."

"No, I do," Giygas responded coldly as he stood over his father, his two beam swords crossed over his chest.

"I can offer you a chance to return once more," Goog offered.

"Stop groveling, Father," Giygas laughed. "I have waited for this moment for a long time."

"I could let you return, Giygas," his father told him. "I could give you what you really want. I could make you Giegue once more. All you have to do is stop fighting me and come with me back to the fleet. Join your people once more, my son. Please."

I'm sorry, Father," Giygas said, shaking his head. "I can't do that…not yet," he said ominously. "I only have to fight you until Phanzo is destroyed." Goog's eyes then flashed perceptively and he rose to continue the fight.

Meanwhile, Ness and the others went up the short set of stairs that led to the Sanctuary. Paula and Poo could feel the energy emanating from the Sanctuary above them. After walking up the stairs, they came upon a door. They quickly opened the door and proceeded to walk through.

The door led to the roof of the base. Right in front of the Chosen Four was the base of the spire and the antenna. There was a stairwell that led to the top of the spire and antenna, but that was not important right now. Despite being outside the base, the magnetic field that extended around the base kept the air inside and allowed them to breathe, as well as keeping in enough heat so that they would not freeze to death. Right in front of the base of the spire was a swirl of white energy. This swirl was the brightest of the swirls of energy that they had encountered. This was it, the Eighth Sanctuary. The group approached the swirl of light and once they were within a few feet of the swirl of light, they hear an ominous voice speak. "So, you actually made it here." The voice sounded impressed. "This is your eighth and final Sanctuary location. However, it's mine now. Come and take it from me, if you have the power that is…" A flash of light then punctuated the landscape and standing before them was an alien that they had never seen before. He did not look like a phantom, though, which is what the teens were expecting. The figure looked humanoid. His skin looked chalky, but had a purplish tinge to it. He wore a fine lime green robe that had complex designs woven onto it. They could tell that underneath the robe was golden armor. The collar of his robe looked like the heads of snakes. They could not see his feet underneath his robe, even though he was still floating a few inches above the ground. They half expected to see tentacles or snakes emerging from the bottom part of the robe, but Phanzo had disappointed them. "I must say that I am really surprised that you made it this far. But this will be your end."

With that, Phanzo launched a series of energy beams that burned holes into the chests of the heroes, killing them, or would have in Ness and Paula's cases, but their Faerie's Mementos kept them alive and allowed them to continue fighting. Still, that did not keep Phanzo from gloating, "And, it's over!"

He was quite surprised to see Ness and Paula rise from the aftermath of their attacks without a mark on their bodies. Phanzo's eyes went wide as Ness used PSI Healing Omega on Poo and resurrected his friend. "How in the Old Ones' names did you survive?" Phanzo asked Ness and Paula. He quickly noticed Poo rise from the ground, his wound now healed. "Impossible!" he proclaimed. "That Death Beam is an instant death attack! There's no way a mere human mortal could survive that!"

Poo and the others paid him no heed. Poo instantly went to work reviving Jeff with PSI Healing Omega while Ness and Paula powered their strongest psychic attacks, PSI Rockin Omega and PSI Freeze Omega respectively. Paula had tried to scan Phanzo, but his mind was closed to her for reasons she did not yet know, but would soon learn. Ness powered his psychic attack. Phanzo watched as the psychic attack grew into the size of a small boulder. Paula, meanwhile, powered a particularly large snowflake of psychic energy over her head. Phanzo whistled at the power that was being generated by the two psychic humans. He merely stood still as they propelled their attacks right at him. The attacks closed in and Phanzo made no move to defend himself against the attacks. What happened next shocked the humans, for the attacks went straight through Phanzo. The evil alien laughed. "Gotcha," he exclaimed. "I can become intangible any time I want! The only way to beat me is to become intangible like me or to strike me while I am tangible!"

It was Phanzo's arrogance that would prove to be his undoing, though, for he had just revealed his one weakness to the psychic teens. They had to be intangible, just like him, in order to attack him. Each of the teens remembered the Star Dust they had gotten in the Faerie World. Each of the teens got out a bag of Star Dust to sprinkle on themselves. When Jeff and Poo were about to sprinkle it on themselves, though, Ness shook his head subtly at him. The two teens quickly understood what Ness meant. He wanted them to remain tangible so that if Phanzo phased back into reality, they would be able to attack him head on. Not only that, but if Phanzo phased back into reality, Jeff also wanted to be ready with his Counter PSI Helmet. He did not know if it would work on magical beings, but he had a good feeling that it would. Before sprinkling the dust on himself, tough, he raised a Shield Omega over the party in order to protect them from Phanzo's attacks when he became tangible once more. After raising the shield over the party, Ness and Paula sprinkled some Star Dust over themselves and quickly disappeared from Jeff and Poo's sight.

The two humans turned to face Phanzo, who could still see them. He had no idea what they were planning with the dust, but he figured that it would not be good. He remained intangible to the normal universe, but it remained to be seen whether or not he would be intangible to Ness and Paula. The two psychics powered their strongest psychic attacks once again and targeted Phanzo. The ball of Rockin and snowflake of Freeze appeared once more. Phanzo yawned. "Come on," he mocked. "Why don't you two try something different. That won't work on me."

He still did nothing to challenge them as they powered their attacks to their strongest level. When they were at their strongest, Ness and Paula unleashed their attacks at Phanzo. Phanzo remained perfectly still and waited for the attacks to strike. They soon struck, only this time, instead of passing through his body, they struck him directly and detonated, engulfing him in a globe of red psychic energy as well as a block of ice. Phanzo cried out in pain, rage, and surprise as the attacks inflicted a great deal of damage to his body. Once the globe of psychic energy dissipated, Phanzo emerged, his robe and body smoking, but still alive.

"How?" he cried out with a fury in his eyes that would have terrified a lesser mortal. "How could you manage to damage me?"

He then proceeded to launch another magical attack at the psychics. This time, though, it was a ball of magical fire. He quickly targeted Ness and Paula and, after phasing back into reality, attacked them with his ball of fire. The ball of fire streaked towards the two psychics, but when it was supposed to strike them, it passed through the two as if they were not even there. This caused Phanzo's eyes to widen once more. Things only got worse for Phanzo, though. The ball of flame struck Jeff, but Jeff had a counter shield over his body so instead of incinerating Jeff, and likely Poo, the ball of flame merely rebounded off of them and traveled back at Phanzo. Ness and Paula took their time to power their strongest psychic attacks once again. Another ball of Rockin and snowflake of Freeze appeared and once the ball of fire returned to Phanzo, they added their own fire to the mix. The snowflake of Freeze and the ball of Rockin followed the magical ball of flame as it reached Phanzo. The ball of flame struck Phanzo and exploded, engulfing him in flames. The ball of flame was quickly followed by the ball of Rockin and Freeze. Both attacks struck simultaneously and once again, engulfed Phanzo in a globe of psychic energy, with the PSI Freeze encasing him in ice, despite the fact that Ness and Paula were phased. Apparently, they could still attack in the real world while phased when using Star Dust, something they made certain to take note of. That was not the end of the attacks, though. Phanzo quickly suffered another series of attacks when Jeff fired a Multi Bottle Rocket at him and Poo launched a barrage of Starstorm at Phanzo. The stars and the Multi Bottle Rocket also struck Phanzo and exploded, inflicting more damage to Phanzo.

But he was not finished yet. Phanzo still had a few tricks up his sleeve, and he knew how the teens were fighting. The two primary psychics, Ness and Paula, were making sure that they would be phased so they could attack Phanzo when he phased, but Jeff and Poo were still unphased. That meant that he could attack them and if he killed them with a single attack, then he could force Ness to de-phase to in order to heal them. He decided to perform his signature attack, an unblockable attack called Death Wave. Jeff and Poo, knowing that Phanzo was up to something, each drew out their bags of Star Dust and sprinkled them on themselves. Phanzo then unleashed his Death Wave, a wave of magical energy that would have killed them all instantly, if it had hit. It was something that would literally tear apart all life, ripping the soul from the body of its target. However, due to being phased, the Chosen Four were safe, and Phanzo looked to be on his last legs. Ness and the then powered their last attacks and targeted Phanzo, before the Star Dust wore off. Ness powered a ball of PSI Rockin Omega while Paula powered another snowflake of PSI Freeze. Jeff got out a Multi Bottle Rocket and targeted Phanzo while Poo powered a barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega.

Phanzo made one last attack, launching a geyser of magical ice at the heroes. However, this, too, was reflected back at him, though it had been sufficient to collapse the shield over the party. Still, it was too little too late. The reflected magical attack struck Phanzo, encasing him in a block of ice. It was then that the Chosen Four unleashed their psychic attacks on Phanzo. Ness's ball of Rockin was the first attack to strike Phanzo, engulfing him once again in a globe of pulsing scarlet psychic energy. This was followed by Paula's blast of PSI Freeze, which scored a direct hit. Next came Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket, which struck Phanzo and exploded, inflicting more damage on his body. Phanzo was in trouble now. He had suffered numerous cuts and was bleeding, his arms barely hanging on by threads. He would not survive another attack, which unfortunately, for him, came in the form of Poo's PSI Starstorm Omega. Dozens of blue orbs of energy streaked towards the evil alien and struck his already damaged body. The first star blasted a hole straight through Phanzo's chest, while the second blew him apart. The subsequent stars immediately vaporized the pieces of his body that were not already destroyed beyond recognition. The battle had ended, and the Chosen Four had emerged victorious. It was then that the Star Dust wore off for Ness and Paula.

After the battle, Jeff walked up and said, "Wow, for someone as hyped as he was, being the final Sanctuary Guardian, he was pathetic. I was expecting more from him. I mean if we timed our attacks right, we wouldn't have even needed the bags of Star Dust at all."

Paula and Poo nodded as well. They, too, were surprised at the ease of which Phanzo was defeated. The Carbon Dog/Diamond Dog was tougher than Phanzo, and Paula said as much to the others, who enjoyed a good laugh, all except for Ness, who was focusing on the Sanctuary.

"Come on guys," he told them. "We have to get to the Sanctuary. We don't have long until the fleet arrives."

"What about Giygas?" Paula asked. "We can't just go without him."

The others agreed, but soon they could hear his voice telepathically telling them, _Go now. I'll hold my father until you get back. Then I'll go to the Sanctuary, too_.

That was enough to convince Poo to go. He then approached the light and soon stepped into the light, and disappeared from sight entirely. Ness quickly followed Poo into the light and disappeared as well. Seeing that there was little else to do, Jeff also jumped into the light. He was followed by Paula, who was apprehensive for a split second before she, too, joined them. The Chosen Four had now disappeared from this world, and the final battle for the eighth Sanctuary was about to begin.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20:

Ness and the others emerged from the swirl of light in what looked to be a palace of some sort. Ness and the others scowled. They had hoped that Phanzo would be the final challenge for them before laying claim to the final Sanctuary. In the back of their minds, though, they knew that claiming the eighth Sanctuary would not be that easy. They berated themselves, thinking that there would not be more to this Sanctuary after seeing the less than stellar display Phanzo put on for them. As the teens walked down the corridor of the palace they had suddenly found themselves in they looked to each side. Columns lined the way all the way down the hall, forming the path. Between the columns, there were statues of humanoid warriors, both male and female, clad in armor, armed with swords, shields, and other weapons, lining the long corridor. Many of these warriors looked human save for the pointed ears that reminded Ness of elves. Judging by the statues, the armor and weapons worn by the warriors was quite ornate. Many of the warriors also appeared to be mounted on massive dragons as well. And the dragon statues that the warriors were mounted on looked to be quite menacing, just like the alien warriors.

The Chosen Four stopped for a moment and looked around the palace. Ness turned to Paula and Poo and asked, "Can you sense the Sanctuary from here?"

The two teens nodded. "It's up ahead likely at the end of the hallway," Poo answered. "But I'm sensing the presence of a number of creatures at the end of the hallway."

"Can you tell what they are?" Ness asked.

Poo shook his head. Ness then glanced over at Paula, who also shook her head. "I can sense them too," Paula told him, "but I can't read any of their thoughts at all. And it's not just because they speak an alien language, either. They've got some pretty strong telepathic defenses."

"Any idea if they're friend or foe?" Jeff asked.

The two psychics shook their heads. "No," Paula answered. "But I would be wary. These beings are powerful." Poo nodded, echoing Paula's sentiment.

The heroes stood huddled together in the corridor for a moment to plan their next move. They knew that they had just been in a taxing, if not all that difficult, battle against Phanzo, so they wanted to make sure that they were in peak condition. Ness finished off his remaining Magic Truffles, recovering most of the psychic energy spent fighting Phanzo, while Paula ate a couple of Magic Truffles, restoring her psychic energy entirely, but leaving her with only one truffle and two Special Cakes. Poo only ate one truffle, still leaving him with four Magic Truffles remaining, so he figured that he was in good shape for whatever happened next. After they were restored to full psychic power, the heroes continued on through the hallway.

It did not take them long to walk through the palace and reach the end of the hallway. They made a quick pace and did not stop to gawk at the rest of the statues that lined the corridor. Once they arrived at the end, Paula and Poo could feel that the true Sanctuary was close. Even Ness, who was not usually sensitive to energy signatures, sensed something. A milestone in their quest was about to be marked. They only hoped that whoever, or whatever, was close was not an enemy. If it were, though, they would be ready for him, her, or it. As they reached the end of the hallway, they were met by two great doors. Without any trepidation, Ness stepped forward and shoved the doors wide open, and the Chosen Four proceeded to enter the room.

The room they entered looked like it could be a ballroom. It was round and large, and its walls looked to be made of marble, or a substance that resembled marble in appearance. Murals hung from the walls, as did what looked to be trophies. There were paintings of the great warriors seen in the previous hall performing acts of murder, abuse, and debauchery, often against children of the races that they plundered, which brought a look of disgust to the faces of the four human children. There was also alien writing on the wall that did not look to be based on any PSI Alien writing, what little the teens knew of it, at all. None of this really interested the Chosen Four, though. All the teens were interested in was the swirling mass of white energy at the center of the room that instantly caught their attention. The four human teens quickly made their way towards the light, and what they hoped would be the true last Sanctuary, but before they could reach it, a blinding flash of light appeared in front of them. The teens recoiled and covered their eyes at the flash in order to avoid being blinded. When the flash faded, the Chosen Four found four massive dragons standing before them. One of the dragons, the one standing in front of the others, had gold scales covering its body and looked to be ancient and powerful. The dragon was massive, easily larger than an elephant, and had a large wingspan. Its head was framed with two long golden horns as well, and flames issued forth from its mouth as it breathed. The other dragons had red, silver, and bronze colored scales respectively, and were just as majestic looking, if different. The bronze scaled dragon had five heads, one red, one blue, one yellow, one brown, and one that looked crystal colored. Each of the dragons, save for their color, looked very similar to one another. Even the five-headed dragon's heads resembled the heads of the others, along with his body in terms of its build. Its scales, however, were multi-colored. Paula and Poo sensed a tremendous amount of magical power, power that was also ancient beyond imagining, emanating from the dragons, but that power was next to nothing compared to those who rode the dragons. Each of the dragons was ridden by four ornately armored warriors.

The warrior in the golden armor, riding the golden dragon, looked to be the leader. He also looked to be the oldest, which was not saying much since he only looked to be in his mid twenties, at the oldest. His helmet looked like that of a medieval knight's. His breastplate had several frills and the gauntlets on his arms had blades that could catch and turn enemy blades, as well as cut his opponents. He also had a golden sword and shield that Paula and Poo sensed had magical properties. Soon, the silver dragon came forward and the others began to make out the features of its rider. The rider was clearly female, who wore silver armor that fully covered her torso. Her helmet was also silver, but her arms were bare save for a simple set of gauntlets that she wore. She also had a rapier, but no shield. Ness and the others suspected that she was mainly a magic user. She looked to be the same age as her companion. The other two dragons bore riders that looked noticeably younger than the first two. The one in red armor, riding the red dragon, looked to be about eighteen and was male. He was covered by some of the most ornate armor that Ness and the others had seen before. There were stylized dragons and tigers on the armor. The younger warrior bore a mighty war hammer. The fourth warrior was female and dressed in what looked to be a bronze-colored uniform. Unlike the older woman, though, the younger one, who looked no older than eighteen, wore a sleeveless bronze tunic with a short, green skirt. The only armor that she wore was a pair of gauntlets on each of her arms. Still, Ness suspected that these warriors had either psychic or magical abilities that sufficed for armor. Each of the warriors looked reminiscent of Tolkienesque elves, but Ness and the others knew that these were no mere elves. They were something more: much, much more.

Ness and the other teens readied themselves for battle. They had a feeling that these people were not their friends. The warriors soon dismounted their dragons and approached the teens. The warrior wearing the golden armor came forward and proclaimed, "We are the last of the Eldest! The true Dragon Lords! We are The People! We were the first species to gain sentience in our entire universe! We stood unopposed! We tamed our realm's dragons! We conquered our universe and enslaved or destroyed its people! We were unopposed by any we crossed, raping and pillaging across the realms as we pleased. The only ones who could challenge us were each other! That was until we came here, and the so-called Magic Lords and PSI Lords rose up and took up arms against us, with the Magic Lords taming dragons of their own to use against us. The Magic Lords eventually even took our names! The theft of our identity was unforgivable and we waged a bloody war against them! Still, they were too much for us, despite our power. While we were powerful in our own realms, here, the Magic Lords and PSI Lords reigned supreme. Attack after attack that we launched against both races was turned back, inflicting heinous losses onto our own people. Their attacks against us cut swaths of destruction across our worlds, and even into our realms once the two races individually found out how to access our realms. We knew we could not defeat the might of both of those races even with our own servant races backing us up, so we came up with a new plan to increase our power. We created an orb and with it, we merged all life in our entire realm into a single entity. That entity was powerful beyond measure. Our strength was magnified in that being, but so were our few weaknesses, including our weakness to PSI. As a result, even the gestalt entity was not enough to defeat the combined might of both races and the entity our people had created was sealed by the PSI Lords and Magic Lords inside a power draining crystal. We are all that remain of the True Dragon Lord legacy, and yet, we still seek worlds to conquer and pillage. Why have you come to our palace? This is no place for mere mortals."

"We seek the Sanctuary that is behind you," Ness calmly called out in reply. Ness made note of the fact that the gestalt of the Eldest had been sealed in a power draining crystal. _Was the Golden Entity the gestalt of the True Dragon Lords_? Ness wondered.

"Then you fought and defeated Phanzo," the silver clad woman said coming up from behind the golden clad warrior. She then whispered to the golden warrior, "Amadan, we cannot let these mortals pass. We need the energy here for our plans to succeed."

"I know, Klarana. We shall kill them," Amadan replied quietly. "Slowly and horribly," he added sadistically. "Rayarth, Klamana," he called over to the younger Eldest, and said, "Prepare for battle, and tell your mounts to prepare for battle as well. Today, we kill once more!"

The younger Eldest cheered and telepathically told the dragons to ready themselves for battle. Their bloodlust would be satiated, for a time, today. Amadan and Klarana then returned to their dragons and mounted them once more. Amadan told his dragon, "Ready your flame Ramagon. We are going to burn them to ashes."

Klarana told her mount, "Sugarga, we will fry them with unholy lightning."

The dragon mounts rumbled with pleasure as they prepared to attack. All the while, Paula and Poo were scanning the minds of the Eldest and their dragons, trying to ascertain any weaknesses that the enemies may have possessed. Not surprisingly, the Eldest's minds were closed to them; however, the dragons' minds were a completely different story. They scanned the dragons' minds and they learned the names of each of the warriors and their dragons. The dragons were named, Ramagon, Sugarga, Fuega, and Hydera, with Ramagon belonging to Amadan, Sugarga belonging to Klarana, Fuega belonging to Rayarth, and Hydera belonging to Klamana. Not only that, but they also learned the powers and abilities of the so-called Dragon Lords, along with the powers of their dragons. Ramagon was able to breathe fire and use magical attacks, while Sugarga used lightning attacks. The party quickly noted that she would be the weak link in the group should it come to a fight. True to his name, Fuega was exclusively a fire-breather while Hydera was able to use elemental magic of fire, water and ice, earth, lightning, and wind. Hydera was likely the most dangerous of the dragons. As for the Eldest, they were powerful in the extreme and each of them could use magical powers from all of the elements. Not only that, but like PSI Thunder, their lightning was able to breach normal shields, which was strange considering the fact that the lightning used by the Golden Entity had been unable to breach normal shields. Ness did not dwell on that, though. He only dwelled on the fact that the Eldest were likely their enemy and would not give up the Sanctuary without a battle.

Suddenly, the Eldest and their dragons powered their magic for an attack. Poo cried out, "Watch out, they're powering up!"

Indeed, the Eldest and their dragons were powering their strongest attacks. Amadan was powering a blast of magic, while lightning crackled between Klarana's fingertips. Rayarth powered a blast of magical flame and Klamana was powering a multi-elemental attack. This was bad since the magical lightning from Klarana, Sugarga, Hydera, and the lightning part of Klamana's attack would collapse any shield that Ness or Poo placed over the party. Not only that, but the party knew that they might not survive an attack like the mass attack that the Eldest and their steeds were about to launch. As such, the party turned to their only means of defense. They each drew out their final bags of Star Dust and sprinkled it over themselves. Immediately, the four humans became intangible.

The Eldest and their dragons, however, were not fazed by the sudden disappearance of the four mortal warriors. They could still sense the presence of the mortals and gave arrogant smiles. They simply incanted their spells and as one, they launched their attacks at the location where they sensed the Chosen Four to be located. Streams of fire, non-elemental magic, lightning, and other elemental magical attacks streaked towards their opponents' location. Much to their surprise, though, their attacks passed through the Chosen Four and inflicted no damage whatsoever. The attacks did not even reveal the locations of the Chosen Four.

Learning from their battle against Phanzo, the Chosen Four knew that they could launch attacks against the Eldest and their dragons with impunity while phased. Not only that, but from the soliloquy that Amadan had given, the Eldest seemed to have difficulty working together effectively, something that the Chosen Four were eager to test. Paula quickly scanned the Eldest to see if they had the ability to raise a psychic shield. Surprisingly, it appeared as if they did not have that ability. Paula quickly relayed the information to the others telepathically, but they still did not want to take any chances. Paula and Poo powered a PSI Thunder Omega and unleashed it towards the enemy dragons, wanting to deal with the dragons and isolate the Eldest. The Eldest seemed to work well with their dragons, but the teens wanted to see how well they worked with each other. Alone, the PSI Thunder attacks were not going to be enough to kill the dragons, however, Ness quickly added his own power to their attacks in the form of a ball of PSI Rockin Omega. He powered the scarlet boulder of psychic energy and unleashed it at Ramagon, the golden dragon. The scarlet ball of psychic energy rocketed towards the dragon and struck Ramagon before the beast could evade the blast and exploded, engulfing not only Ramagon and Amadan in the globe of psychic energy, but all of the enemy party as well. Paula and Poo backed away from the attack in order to ensure that they were not caught in the globe of psychic energy along with the enemy. Jeff then fired a Multi Bottle Rocket into the midst of the globe, targeting what he hoped to be either Ramagon or Amadan. Once the globe of psychic energy dissipated, the group looked on to ascertain what damage they had managed to inflict on the enemy. As expected, none of the dragons were had died yet, but Ramagon and Hydera seemed to have suffered heavy damage from the onslaught. Their bodies were smoking and they were missing several scales. There were noticeable patches of bare skin on them where once, there were only layers of scales that would have made such dragons impervious to normal weapons.

The Eldest seemed to fare a little better than their steeds. While there were burn marks on their armor, and Klamana's tunic had several tears in it, they had not suffered any significant damage. The party quickly used its magic to heal themselves of the damage their bodies had sustained, but they made no attempt to heal each other or the dragons. They only healed themselves, ordering the dragons to attack again, which they did. The dragons continued to attack the invisible humans, scattering lightning bolts and spraying streams of fire, water, wind, and other attacks in order to try to hit their invisible opponents. Not only did they utilize all of their magical attacks, they even snapped at the air, trying to eat their invisible opponents, hoping that they would score a lucky hit. Unfortunately, they only ended up snapping at air. What they did not know was that many of their attacks had washed over the party, but their intangibility had protected them from harm.

Ness and the others were quick to retaliate with a massive psychic assault. Ness powered another ball of PSI Rockin Omega, while Paula unleashed a stream of PSI Fire Omega at the line of dragons. She found it remarkable that they did not attempt to fly out of the way of the attack or make themselves difficult to hit by means of flight. That just demonstrated the dragons' arrogance, or stupidity, in her eyes. The stream of fire washed over the dragons and inflicted severe burns on the unprotected portions of their bodies. Ness quickly unleashed his ball of PSI Rockin against the dragons and Eldest. The ball fell among the dragons and Eldest and exploded, once again engulfing them in a globe of psychic energy. Jeff soon took out one of his Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets and activated the targeting system on his Counter PSI Helmet. He zeroed in on all of the dragons and he lit the fuse to the rocket. The rocket soon soared into the air and zoomed straight for Ramagon. The rocket soon split into multiple separate warheads and streaked towards the dragons, striking them and detonating, each dragon sustaining multiple hits. The explosions blew off more scales and even blew out chunks of flesh from the dragon, though the globe of psychic energy that was Ness's Rockin cauterized the wounds. Still, it was sufficient for Hydera to fall to one knee. He was clearly the most heavily injured of the dragons, burns and cauterized wounds covering his entire body. Poo then added his finest attack to the volley by powering a barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega. Poo unleashed the dozens of blue orbs of energy upon the dragons and inflicted more damage to the beasts. Ramagon, Sugarga, and Fuega managed to emerge from Poo's barrage beaten and bloodied, but alive. Hydera, however, was not so lucky. Being the weakest dragon on defense, and having suffered the most damage of the dragons, he was the first dragon to fall in the battle. He managed to weather the first few stars like a champ, taking each hit in stride while launching a variety of elemental magical attacks in retaliation, even though Poo was still invisible and intangible. Hydera was targeting the origin of the stars, hoping to hit something. But the next few stars started to pound on his weakened scales, blowing off a few of the scales, and even breaking the skin in a few areas, causing bluish blood to leak from the wounds. However, the fact that so many scales had been removed was what finished the battle for Hydera, for Poo still had multiple stars left that were still zeroing in on him, with no help forthcoming from his rider, the other dragons, or their own riders. It was every being for him or herself in this fight, and if there was one thing about the Dragon Lords and their dragons that had gotten them beaten by the Magic Lords and PSI Lords, it was their inability to work together as a team. Hydera lifted his head and attacked the incoming stars with his own elemental attacks, trying to destroy the stars before they managed to strike, but it was too little, too late. The stars quickly overpowered Hydera's defensive attacks and struck him in the chest. The first star blew a massive hole into the dragon's chest, the force of the impact forcing the dragon backwards. Hydera reared back and shook off Klamana, roaring, "Run! Get out of here Klamana! I'll cover you!" And he did. Hydera intercepted the remaining stars and was utterly obliterated. The first star blew off one of his heads, vaporizing it, while the others finished off his remaining heads, along with his torso and legs. Once the attack was over, the three surviving dragons were smoking and roaring in pain, but they were alive. All that was left of Hydera was a smoking lower torso and legs, the upper torso, head, and arms of Hydera were completely obliterated. Klamana showed no sympathy for her dragon's demise, though. "Worthless weakling," she muttered as her only comment on the matter. She then focused on fighting the Chosen Four once more.

It was now that the remaining dragons started to get smart and rise into the air, carrying their riders with them. This left Klamana abandoned on the ground against the Chosen Four, who suddenly reappeared in front of the Eldest. The others quickly took this opportunity to launch an attack against Ness and the others, now that they were visible. However, Ness and the others were not defenseless. Using his telekinesis, he managed to push away some of the energy from the attack and allow the others to scatter before he took the full brunt of the assault. Normally, the attacks would have annihilated Ness, but a miracle happened and he only suffered what would be fatal injuries, though he was not dead yet. He quickly used Lifeup Gamma before he succumbed and restored himself to full health. Both he and Paula breathed a sigh of relief when he was restored to full health. After the close call, Paula and Poo quickly lashed out at the abandoned Eldest, Klamana, by unleashing a blast of PSI Freeze Omega and PSI Starstorm Omega respectively. The already weakened Klamana tried to launch an attack against Poo, but their attacks easily overpowered hers. The stars and snowflake of psychic energy struck Klamana and inflicted massive damage on her. The PSI Freeze Omega attack managed to freeze her solid, which only resulted in the remaining stars from Starstorm Omega shattering her frozen body.

The other Eldest and their dragons roared in rage over the deaths of Hydera and Klamana, not because they loved her or valued her life, but because Klamana dying meant that these humans were dangerous, and they were already weakened due to the earlier parts of the fight. The dragons knew that they would not be able to withstand another psychic assault from the Chosen Four. Unfortunately, for them, that's exactly what the Four did. Ness powered another ball of PSI Rockin Omega, while Poo powered another blast of Starstorm Omega, with Paula unleashing a blast of PSI Torrent Omega towards the dragons. Jeff pulled out his last Super Bomb and tossed it up at the dragons. The Super Bomb detonated among the dragons, pelting them and their riders with shrapnel. The concussion also disoriented the dragons, causing them to fall from the sky and back to the ground. Amadan and Klarana were able to jump from their dragons as they crashed into the ground. Rayarth was not so fortunate, however. Fuega fell to the ground, spinning wildly as she crashed into the ground, Rayarth first. The sickening crack of bones could be heard as green blood leaked from underneath the dragon, undoubtedly from the crushed and misshapen remains of Rayarth. Ness, Paula, and Poo then unleashed their massive psychic assault on the dragons. Ness's Rockin and the first stars from Poo's Starstorm collided with Ramagon and engulfed him, as well as the other dragons, in a red globe of psychic energy. The dragons roared in pain as they were struck by the attacks. Paula's PSI Torrent Omega soon struck the dragons as well, pushing them and the globe of psychic energy backwards. Eventually, the roaring of the dragons ceased. Once the globe of psychic energy dissipated, all traces of the dragons were gone. All that remained were the two remaining Eldest.

The Eldest glared at the human mortals, but even their glares seemed to be off. Something also flashed in their eyes that had not been seen since their last battle against a PSI Alien: fear. Amadan and Klarana were afraid, and rightfully so. Ness and the others had just demonstrated power on a par with the PSI Lords, one of the races that were able to destroy their people. They shuddered to think what would happen if a third race arose that could challenge them.

"We must defeat them, now," Amadan said to Klarana quietly.

"How?" Klarana asked. "We've already lost our dragons, and Klamana and Rayarth are dead as well. The two of us alone don't have the power to defeat them."

"Then we'll have to wait for them to try to recharge their power," Amadan replied. "Even PSI Lords had limits to the amount of power they could use in battle. We don't. All we have to do is outlast them."

Unfortunately, while the two remaining Eldest were talking to each other about the trouble they were in and trying to form a rudimentary plan, Ness and the others were taking advantage of the lull to restore the psychic energy that they had expended during the fighting. Paula had devoured her sole remaining Magic Truffle and felt some of her psychic energy return. Ness, who still had enough psychic energy to launch at least a few more Rockin attacks, declined to eat either of his Special Cakes, preferring to save them for when they were needed. Poo, however, ate two of his remaining Magic Truffles in order to replenish his psychic energy so he could launch more volleys of Starstorm without worrying about his level of psychic energy. Once the heroes were replenished, they turned their attention towards the two remaining Eldest.

The Eldest soon decided that it would be best to engage the heroes in hand to hand combat, despite the fact that they were outnumbered. Amadan and Klarana drew their swords and charged towards the heroes. The heroes responded by drawing their own weapons and moving towards the enemy. Jeff remained behind to cover them, which he did when he drew his Gaia Beam pistol and took several shots at the charging Eldest. The first beam fired from his pistol struck Amadan in the chest. Amadan recoiled from the hit and a hole was burned into his armor, but he was not felled. In fact, he continued to charge. Jeff fired a second blast towards him. Again, another hole was burned into the armor, but he still was not killed. By now, though, they had closed with Ness, Paula, and Poo, and due to their quick speed and reflexes, it would be dangerous for Jeff to utilize his Gaia Beam pistol right now. What he did was to turn on his Counter PSI Helmet and get close enough for it to potentially affect the magical abilities of the Eldest.

Amadan charged Ness and Paula, while Klarana had chosen to engage Poo. Poo immediately drew his Sword of Kings and his beam sword and waited for Klarana to charge him. She held her sword high and emitted a high-pitched cry, which was supposed to disorient him and paralyze him through the use of her magic, but Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet was interfering with her ability to focus her power, especially when she was distracted by entering into close combat with Poo. She swung her sword at the psychic teen, but he was fast. He managed to dodge her initial blow and he swept his sword across her abdomen. While she was endowed with magical armor, her armor only managed to weaken the blow, not negate it. The sword still managed to cut through the armor, but instead of bisecting the woman, she only suffered a slight furrow. Klarana retaliated with a reverse strike aimed at taking off Poo's head. Her strike was unsuccessful as he managed to duck under her strike. While ducking, he simultaneously stabbed with his beam sword at Klarana's chest. The sword burned through the magical armor and pierced her chest, the beam sword blade emerging out the other side. Klarana's eyes went wide with pain and shock as she looked at the wound. Poo then withdrew the blade and he took one last swipe at her neck with the beam sword, severing her neck from her body. Her head flew off her shoulders and landed a couple of feet away from her body and rolled on the ground as Klarana's body fell to the ground. With Klarana dead, all that remained was to defeat Amadan.

Meanwhile, Ness and Paula were engaging Amadan in a serious battle. Despite Amadan's physical skills, Ness and Paula were able to keep up with him and keep him on the defensive. Paula rushed in with her frying pan held high and she attempted to bring her frying pan down on Amadan's head. Amadan, however, managed to dodge the blow, but moved right into the path of Ness's Legendary Bat. The wood connected with his armor and his armor was dented by the impact, though he suffered no internal damage. A loud clang rang out as he was forced back a few feet by the blow. Amadan retaliated with a stab at Ness, but Ness had raised a shield over his body, which caused the sword to be rebounded towards him. The hilt of the blade was suddenly and unceremoniously shoved into the gut of Amadan. Ness quickly used this opportunity to hit Amadan on the side of the head with his Legendary Bat. The blow rang out as the psychically enhanced strength of the child increased the power of the bat, so that it was like a war hammer striking the side of Amadan's head. The attack dented Amadan's helmet and the Dragon Lord fell to the ground, dazed, but still alive. He would not remain so, though, for Paula quickly decided to make this a psychic battle. She powered a blast of PSI Freeze and quickly unleashed it against the fallen Amadan. The snowflake hit the dazed Amadan and exploded, encasing him in a block of ice. Once Amadan was frozen solid, Ness went over to him and with a mighty swing of his bat, shattered the ice statue. The battle was finally over. The Chosen Four had emerged victorious.

Once the battle was over, Poo rejoined his friends and the party headed towards the white light. As they were walking over to the light, they heard a voice behind them call, "Wait for me!" It was Giygas.

Ness turned back and saw that Giygas had sustained some burns and bruises, but other than that, he seemed to be no worse for the wear. Giygas approached them and asked, "How did the fight go?"

"Fine," Ness answered. He did not elaborate, but Giygas got the impression that the fight was easier than Ness had anticipated. Once the reunion was finished, Paula, Poo, and Giygas stepped forward into the light, and the light engulfed them.

Inside the light, they could hear the final part of the Eight Melodies, "…_Sing a melody of love, oh love_. It was then that they heard the whole song in its entirety, sung by a multitude of voices:

_Take a melody_

_Simple as can be._

_Give it some words_

_And sweet harmony._

_Raise your voices_

_All day long now_

_Love grows strong now_

_Sing a melody of love, oh love_.

Immediately, they began to feel as if they were being whisked away to another place. Paula and Poo knew what was to come next. They knew that they were going to go inside their minds and face down the evil inside their own minds and once that was done, they would emerge far more powerful than they were before. Giygas also stepped into the light and let himself drift back into the depths of his mind. He let the light take him and he soon found himself falling asleep.

Once Giygas woke up, he found himself standing in a grassy field. Above him was a floating city that looked to be based on what humans called magitech. That was not what drew his attention, though. Standing in the distance he saw a figure waiting. He extended his telepathic senses in order to see who this figure was. The figure must have been psychic, for he could sense nothing from this figure's mind. He ran towards the figure, trying to identify him or her. When he got closer, he could make out that the figure was female. As he got even closer, he could see that she wore a pink sleeveless dress, a crown, and had blond hair. His eyes went wide. It was Maria. Giygas rushed over to Maria, calling, "Mother!"

Maria turned to face Giygas and her face beamed with pride and happiness. "Giygas!" she cried in joy as she came over to him. The two raced towards each other and when they reached each other, they embraced. Despite Giygas being larger than Maria, Giygas felt a great comfort in her embrace, just as he had when he was a child. This was his dream, his Heaven. He wanted to be with his mother more than anything and for her to be happy.

"So, have you decided on the path you will take?" Maria asked.

"I have," Giygas said, beaming towards his adoptive mother. "I know what I must do, now," he told her.

He embraced her once more, shielding her from sensing that he was powering a ball of energy in his hand. The energy formed a blade and he then said to Maria, "I love you, Mother." He then thrust his energized hand into Maria's chest. His hand went through her heart and a blade of energy emerged from the other side. Blood leaked from Maria's body around Giygas's hand, which was still inside Maria, on her front and back as well. As Giygas had attacked Maria, he added, "Not," in a casual tone, as if he had merely been continuing the conversation.

"Giy…gas…my…son," Maria managed to gurgle as she coughed up blood. Giygas merely smirked and said, "I'm not your son." He withdrew his hand from her chest and let her fall onto the ground. Blood leaked from underneath Maria as she struggled to breathe. Tears streamed down her face, though it was not due to the pain of her physical injuries, but due to the betrayal of Giygas.

"You were the goodness in my heart and soul that was holding me back," Giygas told the fallen representation of Maria, who was still in her death throes. "I had to destroy you in order to acquire my full power." Giygas's face then split into a grin. "And now I shall." An image of his father appeared before him and goaded him on, saying, "Do it, my son. Smash her skull."

"With pleasure," Giygas responded sadistically. He then stood over the fallen Maria, the representation of his good side in Magicant. "I'll be seein' ya, Mommy," Giygas said as he raised his foot and then brought it down onto Maria's head, crushing her skull. "Not," he added as he killed the image of Maria.

He and the image of his father then looked down at the fallen Maria and they both threw their heads back and began to laugh maniacally. It was a laugh that would have terrified even the strongest warriors, for it was a laugh of complete madness and evil. The laughing continued until Giygas disappeared from his Magicant and he perceived himself returning to his physical body. He could sense the soul of Maria looking down on him in sadness, possibly even crying. He now hoped that he was denying her her Heaven by choosing to be evil, despite her best wishes and best attempts to turn him away from his path of evil and to the path of good.

"You were always a foolish little girl," Giygas said to her image. "Now I can do what I was brought into this world to do, destroy those who will eventually become psychic." It was then that Giygas awoke.

Giygas opened his eyes and found that he was back in the palace where the eighth Sanctuary had been located. He grinned as he looked forward. Paula and Poo were still asleep and showing no signs of waking up soon. That left only Ness and Jeff. He knew that Ness was a powerful opponent, but without Paula to raise a psychic shield over him, he was vulnerable to telepathy. Still, it would be best to try and deal with Paula and Poo before they could awaken and cause him any trouble.

Ness and Jeff were looking over at the three psychics and noticed that Giygas was awake. Seeing a glint in Giygas's eyes, Ness stepped into the light and went over to him. "Giygas, you're awake," he said.

Giygas looked down at Ness and replied, "Yes. I am." Giygas tried to suppress a grin as he thought, _And you're about to go to sleep with Paula and Poo_. Before doing so, though, he powered a PSI Thunder attack in his hands. This caught Ness's attention and he called out to Jeff, "Giygas has betrayed us!"

Before he could say anything more, though, he noticed Giygas target the unconscious forms of Paula and Poo. Just as Giygas was unleashing his lightning on the two unconscious psychics, though, Ness appeared directly between Giygas and his friends. Giygas was too late to stop the attack and the lightning bolts streaked towards Ness, the air crackling with electricity as Jeff watched the two battle each other. The lightning struck Ness and a metallic clang rang out as the Franklin Badge reflected the lightning back at Giygas. The lightning bolt struck Giygas in the chest and sent him flying out of the swirl of light, electricity arcing all across his body. Ness then powered a ball of PSI Rockin Omega and prepared to unleash it against Giygas before he could recover, but Giygas looked directly into Ness's eyes.

"I think a trip into Magicant would do you wonders, Ness," he sneered.

Ness froze in his tracks and his ball of PSI Rockin Omega disappeared. Jeff tried to help his friend by launching a Multi Bottle Rocket at Giygas. The rocket streaked towards Giygas and the warheads split apart and converged onto the alien. However, the warheads never reached the alien, for Giygas had raised a shield over his body and the rockets exploded a few feet away from the alien, causing the shield to flare. Jeff then saw Ness fall to the floor, apparently unconscious.

"Ness!" Jeff cried out, fearful for his friend's safety.

He went towards the light to help his friend when he suddenly slammed against a psychic wall. "Not so fast, Jeffery Andonuts," Giygas mocked. He then telekinetically tossed Jeff aside. Jeff flew through the air and into a wall. Giygas, wanting to enjoy this one-sided fight, slowly neared Jeff. "Ness, Paula, and Poo are down, Jeff. Paula and Poo are likely still going through their Magicants to fight their inner darkness, while Ness is currently trapped in his own mind, with no anchor to bring him back since he's already awakened his power." Giygas then gave a laugh as he pulled Jeff towards him, his eyes meeting the teen's. "It's just you and me now, boy," he said in a sinister tone as he shoved Jeff into the wall. "And I'm gonna enjoy this," he added. The fun, for Giygas, was just beginning.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21:

Paula awakened in the middle of a street in what looked to be her hometown of Twoson. This could not be right. Just a second ago she had fallen asleep inside of a palace that housed the final Sanctuary Guardians. She glanced to her sides, looking for any traces of her friends. She found none. She was alone. She rose and peered down the street, finding that it was occupied by strange creatures; one of which was a six-sided die with arms, legs, and wearing a top hat and holding a cane. Another was a set of red lips, puckered as if they were about to kiss someone. Given how Ness described his Magicant during the War Against Giygas, Paula figured that she was in her own Magicant. Paula glanced around the street once more and found it lined with homes and buildings that were familiar to her. She knew that her goal would be the Polestar Preschool. She carefully walked down the street, doing her best to avoid the enemies that were patrolling her street. Still, she drew out her Holy Frying Pan and mentally prepared herself for a fight.

Unfortunately, one of the enemies, a six-sided die instantly noticed her as she moved forward and proceeded to charge her. The six-sided die, what Ness had referred to as Loaded Dice, emitted a high-pitched scream. Paula knew that that was a call for help since it did not hurt her at all. Immediately, a Care Free Bomb, a creature with a round, green torso, a red triangle-shaped head, with gray arms and legs, appeared. Not even a couple of minutes into her Magicant and she was already in a fight. She knew that she needed to deal not only with the Loaded Dice, but the Care Free Bomb that it had summoned. One look at the Care Free Bomb told her that it would likely explode upon its destruction, which would be hazardous to Paula. As such, she quickly drew out one of her Super Bombs and tossed it at the two enemies, hoping that it would be sufficient to deal with them. The Super Bomb arced in the air towards the enemies as the Care Free Bomb drew out a Super Bomb of its own and prepared to toss it at Paula. Just as the Care Free Bomb had wound up and was about to make the pitch, Paula's Super Bomb landed right next to the Care Free Bomb and exploded. The bomb's explosion also detonated the Super Bomb inside the Care Free Bomb's hand as well, which blew apart the Care Free Bomb. The Loaded Dice also was caught in the explosions, but he did not suffer quite as much damage as the Care Free Bomb did. As a result, he was still alive, and could still call on allies for help. He was about to make another call when Paula ran up to the dice with her frying pan held high and she brought the frying pan down onto the dice's body. The dice's body cracked and it began to stagger backwards. Paula then performed a side kick to the dice and knocked it to the ground and onto its back. One final bash with her frying pan was all that was needed to finish off the dice.

After the fight, Paula ran down the street, trying to get her bearing so that she could at the very least find her Magicant's representation of home. She had a feeling as if that was her desired destination. As she charged down the street, she was accosted by two sets of red lips that, according to Ness's description from his own Magicant, were called French Kisses of Death. Paula did not want to engage in a protracted battle against these creatures, so she simply powered a blast of PSI Thunder Omega in her hands and unleashed the lightning attack on the two sets of lips. The lightning struck the lips and electricity arced across the two enemies. The enemies, however, made no noises or movements at all that indicated that they were in pain. Still, after a few seconds, the lips fell to the ground and faded into nothingness. Paula then rushed down the street once more, hoping to get to the center of her Magicant as quickly as possible. She suddenly had a terrible feeling that something had gone horribly wrong in the outside world, which only caused her to quicken her pace.

As she reached a street corner, she found a street sign. The sign read, _Tranquility Street_. Paula had a feeling that she was headed in the right direction for her house. Even though the street names were off, she recognized the appearance of the street, and she could see the lights of the Chaos Theater off in the distance. She opened her telepathic senses to find another Loaded Dice walking around on the street. Not wanting to have to deal with his reinforcements, Paula quickly powered a blast of PSI Freeze Omega. As the snowflake formed over her head, the Loaded Dice looked in her direction and noticed her. The Loaded Dice immediately emitted its high-pitched scream and an Uncontrollable Sphere, a black sphere with purple lips twisted into a smile, soon appeared next to it. Paula launched the blast of PSI Freeze Omega towards the Loaded Dice, viewing it as the more serious threat, despite its lack of demonstrated attacks. The Loaded Dice made no attempt to avoid the attack, while the Uncontrollable Sphere floated away from the icy snowflake of psychic energy as it streaked towards the Loaded Dice. Paula tried to divert her PSI Freeze Omega so that it would ensnare both of the enemies. The PSI Freeze Omega attack detonated close enough to the Loaded Dice to encase it in ice, but the Uncontrollable Sphere was too far away to suffer any damage from the explosion. Paula, seeing the Uncontrollable Sphere zip away from the explosion, quickly charged a blast of PSI Thunder Gamma in her hands and unleashed it against the explosive sphere, knowing that it was too far away for the explosion to affect her. The lightning leapt from her fingers and almost instantly struck the Uncontrollable Sphere. The Thunder attack was sufficient to inflict fatal damage to the sphere, which promptly exploded in midair. Once the battle had concluded, Paula glanced around her and found no further enemies in the vicinity. She then took this opportunity to catch her breath before continuing down the street towards the Chaos Theater.

Along the street, she noticed a pair of Electro Swooshes, enemies that consisted of a pair of eyes with lightning bolts above them forming eyebrows, approaching. Paula quickly used her telepathy to scan them and she discovered that they were somewhat vulnerable to PSI Freeze. As such, she powered a snowflake of PSI Freeze Omega and unleashed it against the two electric-based enemies. The snowflake of psychic energy quickly soared into the air and right at the two electrical enemies. Before the Electro Swooshes could react or retaliate, the snowflake of psychic energy exploded between the two enemies, encasing them in a block of ice. The ice block proceeded to fall to the ground, where it shattered into thousands of shards. Once this skirmish was over, Paula continued on her way.

It was not long before Paula arrived at the Chaos Theater. She looked up at the advertising display that showed the acts that were going to be performed. She saw that there was an act titled, _The Chosen Four's Demise, starring Giygas, Ness, Paula Polestar, Jeff Andonuts, and Poo. Playing now._ Another title just underneath of it was, _Paula's Awakening, starring Paula Polestar. Playing whenever she gets to the Polestar Preschool_. That was enough to convince Paula that not only were her friends in trouble, but that she was on the right track. Paula ran past the theater and at the end of the street, turned right. She then continued down the street, taking out two French Kisses of Death that had tried to accost her along the way.

Once Paula had dealt with the French Kisses of Death, the rest of the way was clear. While she encountered no further resistance, she did, however, find a gift box along the road. She stooped down and opened the box. Inside were two Magic Truffles. Remembering that when Ness had consumed items in Magicant that they disappeared in the real world, she took the Magic Truffles and proceeded to eat them. She felt a refreshing wave of energy wash over her as she devoured the truffles. Once she was refreshed, all that was left to do was to head down to the Polestar Preschool and hopefully unlock her true power.

Paula continued down the deserted street until she came upon the Polestar Preschool. The school building, itself, did not look particularly disheveled or pristine. In fact, it looked quite normal. For a second, she began to wonder if this was really the target she should have been going for. Still, she remembered what she had just read on the billboard above the Chaos Theater. Viewing that as her best lead, she proceeded to make her way around the building and to the front.

Once she arrived at the front of the Polestar Preschool, instead of the door leading into the school, and her home, she found a swirl of white energy, just like the swirls of Sanctuary energy. She opened her telepathic senses again and felt that there was something on the other side of this portal. She immediately stepped into the swirl of energy and felt herself get whisked away to a new location.

When she appeared in the new location, she found herself on a rock in the middle of a sea of purple liquid. Looking into the distance, she was able to spot a larger island that was made of stone. Looking out over the sea, closer to her own stone, she saw a series of stepping stones that seemed to lead out to the island. She hopped along each of the stones, being careful not to step into what looked to be purple water. She did not want to take any chances here. She carefully stepped from one stone to the next, all the way to the island. When she reached the island, she saw a golden statue that seemed to resemble the Evil Mani Mani Statue that had caused so much trouble in Fourside during the War Against Giygas. As she approached the statue, the golden statue cracked and broke apart, revealing Paula's worst nightmare, an evil version of herself. This version of Paula still had blond hair, but wore a glittering black mini-dress with shiny black dress shoes. This Paula had no ribbon in her hair, letting it fall down to her shoulders, but she did wear red lipstick. She also had a belt with a knife on it. She drew the knife and brought it to her mouth, where she licked the blade sadistically. The fake Paula then grinned sadistically at the real one. "Hey there, Paula Polestar," the fake Paula said, in a sadistic tone that only served to unnerve the real Paula. "I'm Your Nightmare. I am everything you're afraid of becoming. I'm your dark side." She then grinned and flashed her eyes. "I'm gonna make you strip your friends of their free will and make them do everything you command, without any chance to resist. I'll have you kill everyone you don't like. Either that or again, make them your mind slaves. Whenever a child annoys you, I'll make you control that child and make him or her perform…"

"Enough!" Paula cried out, and she lashed out in rage at Her Nightmare with a blast of PSI Thunder. Paula had instantly unleashed the attack at its Omega level, something that had never happened before. The lightning attack took Paula's Nightmare by surprise and she cried out as she was struck by the attack, her PSI Shield Beta collapsing instantly upon being hit by the lightning. Lightning arced around her body as she was thrown backwards a few yards. However, Paula's Nightmare was far from finished. Once the lightning stopped sparking around her body, Paula's Nightmare looked at her hands, and then down at her chest.

"Well, I must say that I'm impressed," she noted, taking stock of the damage that Paula's attack had inflicted on her. "I never knew that you could do something like that."

Even Paula was surprised by her strength. Not only that, but she had used significantly less psychic energy in that attack than she had previously with PSI Thunder Omega, even though the attack was just as strong, if not stronger, than any of her previous PSI Thunder Omega attacks. Paula grinned for a second before refocusing back on Her Nightmare. She had the edge now, but she did not want to surrender it at all.

Paula's next move was to power a PSI Shield Beta over herself. She had enough psychic energy left to do that and still launch several more powerful psychic attacks. As she did so, Her Nightmare began powering a ball of PSI Thunder Omega. Paula knew that if she did not avoid this attack, that her psychic counter shield would be neutralized. As such, Paula began to move in order to make herself a more difficult target to hit, while she began to power a blast of PSI Fire, knowing that Her Nightmare must have had the same vulnerability to fire that she did. Her Nightmare unleashed a stream of PSI Thunder at her just as Paula unleashed her ball of PSI Fire Omega at the Nightmare. Paula's rapid and evasive movements, along with Paula's Nightmare's own evasive countermeasures as well as the ball of PSI Fire Omega, prevented Paula's Nightmare from being able to get an accurate fix on her location. As a result, the bolts of PSI Thunder Omega that had erupted from her fingers did not manage to strike Paula, or damage her psychic counter shield. The same could not be said about Paula's PSI Fire attack, though. Paula managed to guide her attack home onto Her Nightmare. The ball of PSI Fire Omega struck Paula's Nightmare and exploded, engulfing her in flames. Paula's Nightmare cried out in agony and quickly rolled onto the ground in order to extinguish the flames. Unfortunately, for the Nightmare, though, Paula took advantage of this opportunity to launch a blast of PSI Thunder Omega, which used up less psychic energy than PSI Fire. Lightning erupted from Paula's fingertips once more, lashing out at the burning Paula's Nightmare. The lightning struck Paula's Nightmare, inflicting even more damage. Eventually, Paula's Nightmare rose from the ground, but burns and blisters now covered her entire body, her face a mask of rage and anguish.

"Look at what you've done!" she cried out, bursting into tears. "You've ruined my form!"

Paula's Nightmare then charged another attack of PSI Thunder and was about to unleash it on Paula when another blast of PSI Fire came her way. This one, however, was only at its Gamma level, which would be more than enough if it made contact with the Nightmare. Upon seeing the blast of PSI Fire Gamma, Paula's Nightmare swore, "Oh crap!" She deftly dodged the cone of flame that was headed her way, but Paula swept her hand across the field of battle. The Nightmare tried to evade the fire, but Paula kept track of her and as Her Nightmare tried to roll beneath the cone of flames, Paula lowered the cone and the flames made contact with the Nightmare's skin. Paula's Nightmare was set ablaze once more and roared in agony and rage as she tried to stand. Eventually, she was able to stand and, knowing that Paula's psychic counter shield was still active, gave out one last cry of rage before collapsing to the ground and letting the flames of Paula's PSI Fire Gamma consume her.

After the battle was over, and the body of Paula's Nightmare reduced to nothing but ashes, a swirl of white energy appeared over the ashes of Paula's Nightmare. Paula knew that this was her destination, and the true center of her Magicant. As she stepped into the swirl of energy, she felt power rush over her. The images of each and every one of the Sanctuaries flooded into her mind in less than an instant. She could see the Snow Wood Boarding School, the Gold Mine in Dusty Dunes Desert, the tunnel in the New York City Subway System, the area in the Atlantic Ocean where Atlantis once stood, the Scaraban Pyramid, the Faerie World, Lava Mountain, and now the Palace inside the moon. Paula also knew that the swirl of energy inside the base took them to the palace inside Earth's moon, the final resting place of the remaining Eldest and their dragon steeds. The power then washed over her and entered her body, mind, and soul. Paula suddenly felt a power the likes of which she had never known before as the energy from each of the Sanctuaries flooded into her. Her stores of psychic energy were fully replenished, and more. She felt the power that she could wield using her elemental PSI increase greatly, and not only increase, but she consumed less energy with each attack as well, pushing all of her energy into said attacks rather than wasting it generating the power. It was a sensation that Paula had never felt before, and it was magnificent. "So this is what you felt when you conquered your Magicant and unlocked the Sanctuaries' power," Paula said to an image of Ness inside her mind. She smiled and almost laughed at the sensation. She now knew her true limits and could fight to her full potential. She knew that she would need would get even stronger as she got older and gained more experience, but right now, she could feel her power peaking. It was then that Paula felt he sensation of being whisked away from where she was standing once more. And she knew that it was time to wake up. Her friends needed her, now more than ever.

While Paula was inside her Magicant, Poo also awakened on top of a tall hill. He looked around and saw what looked to be a microcosm of Dalaam standing out before him. He recognized several of the houses and could see the palace in the distance a few hundred yards away. He quickly realized that this was a representation of the hill that he had taken his final Mu test on. He then looked out over the seeming replica of Dalaam and focused on the trail leading up to the palace. He saw that the trail was crawling with beings, seemingly humanoid, that he did not recognize. He extended his psychic senses to try to ascertain whether or not they had psychic powers, but he could not tell one way or the other. He also tried to see if there was any Sanctuary energy emanating from this place, managing to find a strange energy signature coming from the direction of the palace. He then looked around and sensed nothing unusual from any other location, except for the fact that there was nothing to sense at all in those areas. Poo quickly decided that he would not get far merely standing on top of the hill, so he proceeded to climb down the rope in front of him and proceeded to make his way towards the palace.

Once he climbed down the mountain, he turned and standing before him was a humanoid figure dressed in an all black ninja uniform, complete with a mask that only revealed his enemy's eyes. The figure had a sword strapped to his back and upon spotting the Dalaamese prince, drew the weapon, a ninjato. This prompted Poo to draw his own sword and hold it out in front of his body in a defensive position.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Poo called out to the unknown humanoid figure. He could not sense any psychic power emanating from the figure, but he knew that the figure was still a dangerous fighter. The figure answered Poo's question when he charged the teen and tried to decapitate him. Poo managed to dodge the blade and jump away from the attacker. Poo raised his sword as the Evil Ninja attacked once more, this time by tossing shuriken at Poo. The throwing stars, while they would not have normally been fatal, were thrown at amazing velocity, enough to inflict serious damage against a normal. However, Poo was not a normal, though he still did not want to test his durability, or the killing power of the shuriken. He raised his blade and blocked the shuriken, deflecting them off of his blade. The ninja, seeing that the shuriken were ineffective, then charged Poo and tried to decapitate him once more. Poo dodged the blow and counterattacked. His riposte caught the ninja in the side. He then pulled his sword back to him, cutting the ninja. The Evil Ninja fell to the ground, dead. Upon dying, the ninja's body disappeared. Poo then walked past the scene of the battle and turned to his right to follow the trail to the palace.

As he was walking along the trail, he found another warrior standing before him. This time, the warrior was wearing samurai armor and wielding a katana. However, the exposed skin of the warrior was a deathly gray and the eyes were sickly green. The Deathly Samurai drew his yumi bow and strung an arrow to it. Poo was familiar with the weapon and raised a Shield Alpha over his body. He did not want to waste any energy against these warriors, strongly suspecting that there would be far tougher challenges ahead that might require his considerable psychic powers. He merely drew his sword and charged the Deathly Samurai. The samurai fired his bow and arrow and the arrow streaked towards Poo, emitting a whistle. The arrow struck Poo's shield and bounced off of it, inflicting no damage to Poo or to his shield. The Deathly Samurai, seeing that his bow and arrow was insufficient to penetrate Poo's defenses, quickly retreated and was soon joined by two more of his kind, each of them armed with identical weaponry. Poo did not alter his course. He was confident that with his shield up, he would be able to defeat the three Deathly Samurai with relative ease.

As a single unit, the three Deathly Samurai took aim and fired their bows at Poo. Arrows shrieked towards Poo, only to glance off of his shield. Poo then began his counterattack. He quickly arrived at the first Deathly Samurai and he thrust his sword into the samurai's chest. Poo's Sword of Kings pierced the armor the Deathly Samurai was wearing and managed to bite into the flesh of the enemy soldier. Poo pushed against his blade and his blade bit further into the enemy's body. A green light shown around the wound and the Deathly Samurai dropped his weapons and went limp. As Poo retracted his blade from the Deathly Samurai's body, the green light became brighter and greenish gases and energy leaked out from the wound. The Deathly Samurai fell to the ground and stopped moving. After the Samurai stopped moving, his body disappeared. Poo then focused his attention on the other two Deathly Samurai. He charged the Deathly Samurai to the right of the fallen warrior and with blinding speed rushed in and swung at the Deathly Samurai's neck. With a single swing, Poo managed to decapitate the second Deathly Samurai with a clean cut. The head of the Deathly Samurai flew off his shoulders, but only green light was emitted from the wounds, which promptly faded as the creature quickly died. The now headless Deathly Samurai fell to the ground and the body, and head, promptly vanished into thin air. That left only one Deathly Samurai left.

The remaining Deathly Samurai, seeing that he was no match for Poo, decided that a frontal assault was his only option. As such, the Deathly Samurai raised his sword high and emitted a loud war cry and charged the teen. Poo was not impressed and he quickly charged in counter to the Deathly Samurai. Poo was far faster than the non-human creature and with a single swing of his sword he decapitated the remaining Deathly Samurai. Once the battle was over, Poo bowed towards his fallen opponent, which was in the process of fading away. He did not do so in a condescending manner at all. He merely did so out of respect for the opponents and their power. Once that was done, Poo continued on his course towards the palace, and what he hoped was the goal of this exercise.

Poo continued to walk along the trail. Before reaching the fork in the path, he encountered another Evil Ninja, which he dispatched with contemptuous ease. Once he reached the fork in the path, he proceeded to his right. Since this was like a miniature version of Dalaam, he knew the path to the palace, so he suspected that he would not be getting lost on the way. As he proceeded along the path, he sensed a group of enemies approaching, which surprised him since they did not give off any psychic or magical echoes. Poo quickly prepared for another battle as a quartet of soldiers that were armed with machine guns, with one of them even having a rocket propelled grenade launcher, came out to face him. They wore masks over their faces.

Poo, not knowing for certain whether the soldiers were friend or foe, called over to them, asking, "Who are you?"

The leader of the soldiers, the one with the RPG, answered, "Your enemy."

The leader then raised his RPG and targeted Poo with it. Poo immediately raised a Shield Beta, remembering that the psychic cost between a Shield Alpha and a Shield Beta was not all that great, and these soldiers each had good long ranged weapons that might damage his Shield Alpha. The lead soldier then fired his RPG and the grenade erupted from the launcher and targeted Poo. Poo could sense the grin on the soldier's face as he fired his grenade. The grenade streaked towards Poo and came within inches of hitting him before impacting Poo's counter shield. Poo's shield flared as the grenade struck the shield and rebounded off of it, being thrown back to the soldiers, tumbling as it flew. The soldiers tried to flee the incoming projectile, but they were too slow. The grenade landed among them and exploded, killing them. Two of the Incompetent Enemy Soldiers were blown to pieces by the explosion, while the others were shredded by shrapnel and/or killed by the shockwave of the explosion. Once the battle was over, Poo walked past the scene. Before leaving, though, he stooped down to check the condition of the RPG launcher. He saw several metallic shards sticking out of the weapon and decided that it was not worth the risk. He pulled out his katana and with a single stab, scuttled the launcher, making sure that any enemy that may come up from behind could not use it against him. He also did this with the guns that the soldiers had wielded. Once he was finished dealing with the soldiers' weapons, he continued on his way to the palace.

Poo followed the path to the palace up the mountain, facing sporadic resistance from Evil Ninjas and Deathly Samurai, dealing with them all with single swipes of his sword. After they had been dealt with, he continued on his journey. When he came to a house with a straw roof, he took a left and encountered another ninja. This ninja, however, was different, for Poo sensed a sort of power emanating from this soldier. The soldier spun around, holding out his hand in a cupped position. Just then, he witnessed fire form in the palm of his hand and the ninja shoved his other hand out towards Poo. Poo was already moving to his right when the fire lashed out towards him, missing him by scant inches. Poo still felt the rush of heat flow past his body as the air around the fire was heated by the passing flame. Poo gritted his teeth. The Magic Ninja then performed a series of hand movements that resembled signs of some sort. Poo then noticed electricity begin to crackle across the ninja's fingertips. Seeing no other option, Poo decided that he could not take this opponent lightly. He could still win holding back, but it would cost him needlessly. He then powered a blast of PSI Thunder at its Beta level. He quickly targeted the Magic Ninja and fired his blast of PSI Thunder just as the ninja launched two massive lightning attacks shaped like a dragon at Poo. Poo did not have a Franklin Badge, so he knew that if he was hit, that he would suffer severe injuries from the attacks. Still, he was quite powerful, himself and had confidence in his abilities to push back the Magic Ninja's lightning attack. Poo's blast of PSI Thunder Beta struck the lightning dragons and the lightning dragons were suspended in midair for a few moments before being pushed back by Poo's attack. The Magic Ninja, however, stood his ground and tried to push more power into his attack. It was too little, too late, though. The Magic Ninja could not withstand Poo's power and soon, his magical lightning dragons were pushed back to him where they struck him, along with Poo's own PSI Thunder Beta, and exploded into spheres of lightning. The two attacks were sufficient to kill the Magic Ninja, electrocuting him and frying him to a crisp. The Magic Ninja promptly collapsed into a pile of ashes, which quickly vanished into thin air. Once the battle was over, Poo once again continued on his way.

It was not long before Poo turned to his right once more and followed the path up the hill, and towards a clearing. Once he arrived at the clearing, he looked to his left and found the palace. Upon approaching the palace, four Magic Ninjas appeared in front of him, blocking his path. Each of them powered an attack of a different element: one fire, one water, one ground, and one lightning. Poo, however, was not in the mood for a protracted battle, so he powered a blast of PSI Starstorm Alpha in order to deal with these enemies. A dozen blue orbs of energy appeared around his body and once they had formed, he unleashed them at the enemy ninjas. The Magic Ninjas saw the assault coming and, knowing that they were doomed, launched their attacks anyway, hoping that one of the attacks might get through and cause Poo to waste more of his psychic energy. Their attacks, however, were unable to get through the barrage of stars. The stars rocketed through and blocked the ninjas' attacks. Soon the stars fell among the ninjas, vaporizing the ninjas with single hits. When the battle was finished, all that was left were a series of craters created by the Starstorm barrage.

After the battle, Poo proceeded to enter the palace. Upon entering the palace, he found himself in a familiar corridor. The walls were lined with bricks and a red carpet led to the throne room at the other end of the hall. Poo glanced around at his surroundings, trying to make certain that there were no enemies lurking in the hallway. So far, he found none. As such, Poo continued on his way to the throne room. When he reached the end of the hall, he came upon a set of large golden doors. Poo pushed open the doors and walked through into the throne room.

Inside the throne room, he looked at the golden throne before him at the other end of the room. He could see a masked figure sitting on the throne. Besides the mask, the figure was wearing a regal purple robe, signifying the fact that he was a king. As Poo crossed the distance between the doors and the throne, the figure removed his mask and revealed himself to be none other than Poo.

"So, you've come," Poo's doppelganger said, rising from the throne and stepping down to meet Poo. "I must say that I'm not all that surprised. The defenses I mounted against you were less than stellar, I must admit. Still, I was hoping that you'd be weaker than you are now." His eyes then flashed.

"Who are you?" Poo asked forcefully.

"I am Your Nightmare," Poo's double responded. "I am the evil in your heart and soul. I am what you fear to become when you use your full power and tower over the other worthless mortals. And now, I am going to destroy you and take over your body. Prepare for oblivion!"

Poo gritted his teeth. He was not about to let the evil inside his soul take over his body. He decided that the best course of action would be to open up with a psychic attack, knowing that if this doppelganger was, indeed, His Nightmare, that he would have all of his own psychic powers and abilities, which meant no psychic shields of any kind. Poo opened with a blast of PSI Starstorm Omega, not wanting to hold back against His Nightmare. He immediately powered the attack and dozens of blue energy orbs formed around Poo. Poo's Nightmare also powered a blast of PSI Starstorm Omega. Once Poo was ready, he unleashed his attack against His Nightmare. The stars rocketed towards His Nightmare, who refused to move, seeing that his only chance at avoiding damage was to power his attack to full and unleash it to counter Poo's own. Poo's attack, however, reached the Nightmare before he could power his Starstorm Omega to full power, so Poo's Nightmare had to make due with what he had, which was not nearly enough against the overwhelming power of Poo's Starstorm Omega. The stars converged onto Poo's Nightmare and struck him, one right after the other. Poo's Nightmare tried to at least blunt the blow, but the first hit was enough to disrupt his concentration, causing his stars to vanish into thin air. Poo's Nightmare proceeded to curl his arms around himself in an attempt to limit the damage, but each impact managed to push the Nightmare farther backwards. Eventually, he was thrown into his throne. Poo quickly followed up with a blast of PSI Thunder Omega, which struck the Nightmare and caused his throne to topple over with the force of the impact. Lightning arced around Poo's Nightmare's body as he struggled to rise and launch a counterattack.

Eventually, the Nightmare rose and launched a blast of PSI Freeze Gamma, forgetting for a time that Poo was actually strong against PSI Freeze attacks. The fact that he was wearing a Diadem of Kings, which significantly blunted the damage dealt by Freeze attacks did not help the Nightmare, either. With his already strong resistance to Freeze, Poo suffered no severe injuries when the snowflake exploded and showered him with cold winds and snowflakes of psychic energy. He merely felt a little cold, as if he had been walking in the snow with his summer clothing for a few seconds. Other than that, he was fine.

Poo, however, did not make such a mistake against His Nightmare, though. Poo continued to use his strongest psychic attacks against the Nightmare. He powered a second barrage of PSI Starstorm and when it was finished forming, Poo unleashed it against His Nightmare. Poo's Nightmare responded by launching a blast of PSI Thunder Omega at Poo, knowing that his Diadem of Kings would not blunt the damage dealt by lightning attacks. While Poo had managed to launch the attack, just as his attack struck the Nightmare, the Nightmare's attack struck Poo. Lightning arced across Poo's body and he grunted as he fell to one knee. Still, he was able to ground much of the electricity and he was not fatally injured. Poo quickly used Lifeup Beta on himself to heal the damage, and to make sure that he would be able to survive another attack that came his way. His Nightmare, however, was looking far worse for the wear. As the blast cloud cleared, it was evident that the Nightmare's body was smoking. There were also numerous cuts, bruises, and burns marking the body of Poo's Nightmare. Despite all the damage the Nightmare had sustained, he was not ready to give up just yet. Poo's Nightmare still had a chance of winning this fight. He immediately used Lifeup Gamma on himself to heal the damage that he had suffered. The Nightmare then grinned at Poo. He was far from finished, and Poo had used up a significant portion of his psychic power. Still, Poo was far from finished too.

Poo quickly realized that this battle would come down to who ran out of psychic power first. So far, Poo had used up more energy than His Nightmare, but his Nightmare may have been able to be forced to use up more energy for healing. Poo also decided that now was the perfect time to prepare for when this fight would become a physical battle. He raised a Shield Beta over himself, which surprised His Nightmare to no end.

"A Shield Beta against psychic attacks?" Poo's Nightmare mocked. "You must be nuts!"

Poo's Nightmare then proceeded to power a barrage of Starstorm Omega. Poo promptly began to run around the throne room, making himself a difficult target, while drawing out a Super Bomb. He pushed the activation stud on the bomb and tossed it at His Nightmare. Poo's Nightmare noticed the bomb coming towards him, which prompted him to jump out of the way. The moment his feet left the air, Poo grinned. He knew exactly where his enemy was going to land. Poo's Nightmare fired off the barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega as he was flying through the air. However, due to his movement, he had difficulty targeting Poo, and most of his stars missed Poo by a mile. A few, however, managed to land near Poo, causing him to weave around them on his path to where Poo's Nightmare would land. As Poo's Nightmare landed, Poo arrived and thrust his sword into His Nightmare's abdomen. A look of pain and shock crossed Poo's Nightmare's face as he looked down at his wound, and then at Poo. Poo soon withdrew his blade and attempted to decapitate his enemy. The Nightmare, however, raised his own blade to block Poo's. A smile twisted his lips. He quietly said, "Lifeup Gamma." A sucking sound was heard and the Nightmare's wound closed. The Nightmare looked at Poo again and yelled, "PSI Starstorm Omega! One more time!"

Dozens of blue stars formed around the Nightmare. Poo did not know how much psychic energy he had compared to His Nightmare, but he hoped that it would be enough. Poo quickly powered his PSI Starstorm Omega in order to counter His Nightmare's attack. Once the two attacks were fully powered, the two enemies unleashed them against one another. The two barrages of stars collided in midair with each other, forming massive explosions, and sending up clouds of dust. The attacks were evenly matched, as neither attacker's stars managed to get through to strike their target. Poo, however, could sense the location of his opponent, so he rushed his opponent once more and drew his sword. When he arrived, he tried to decapitate him and bring the battle to a swift end, but the Nightmare managed to back away far enough so that Poo only managed to cut the Nightmare's throat. While a wound like that would have been fatal to a normal, eventually; Poo's Nightmare was not a normal. His Nightmare promptly used Lifeup Gamma once more, restoring himself to perfect health. The Nightmare then grinned at Poo once again.

"Nothing you do will last, Poo. I'll just regenerate from all the damage you inflict on me. You may as well give up now," he mocked.

Poo did not take the bait, though. Everything was going according to plan. He knew that he could defeat His Nightmare. All he needed to do was to get His Nightmare to use up all of his psychic energy. The Nightmare was eager to oblige Poo by firing a barrage of PSI Thunder Omega at the boy. Poo used his psychically enhanced reflexes and speed to dodge the lightning, causing it to miss entirely. Poo smiled, things were going well for him. With His Nightmare now wasting his psychic energy against him, chances were better that he would be the one with psychic energy remaining at the end of the fight. All Poo had to do was to get him to waste more psychic power.

Poo's Nightmare decided to end this fight once and for all by powering a blast of PSI Starstorm Omega. Poo smiled, knowing what was to come. He had already been weakened from his previous battles, and he had already used up much of his psychic energy, but he still had enough to use Lifeup Gamma. He only had to time the use of his technique correctly. The stars fell down among Poo and exploded, prompting Poo to use the Lifeup Gamma on himself. He felt each impact from the stars as each impact knocked him backwards; the only thing keeping him from suffering more severe injuries was the Lifeup Gamma. Despite the power of the Nightmare's attack, the stars were unable to kill him, and when the barrage was over, while the throne room was pock-marked with craters, Poo remained alive and well, while Poo's Nightmare had used up almost all of his psychic energy. He no longer had the psychic strength to power a PSI Starstorm Omega. He suddenly realized that this was Poo's plan all along. Poo had gotten him to use up all of his psychic energy attacking him foolishly while Poo had chosen the times in which he would attack. The Nightmare gritted his teeth. He, however, deduced from the fact that Poo had yet to launch a PSI Starstorm Omega attack of his own at the moment that he, too, did not have enough psychic energy to use such an attack against him. Poo's Nightmare grinned. He still had a chance.

Poo's Nightmare quickly powered a Shield Beta over himself that would reflect all non-psychic attacks back at the user. This was his first step. The next step was to use his remaining psychic power to power a blast of PSI Thunder in order to collapse Poo's own normal shield. This would allow him to attack Poo directly. He powered a blast of PSI Thunder Omega and unleashed it against Poo from his fingertips. Lightning streaked from his fingertips and lashed out at Poo. Poo managed to dodge some of the lightning, but one of the bolts managed to hit, collapsing his shield but not causing any significant damage to Poo. Poo fell to one knee. Poo's Nightmare grinned. He had him now. Now, there was nothing Poo could do.

Poo's Nightmare used his last bit of psychic energy to power a PSI Starstorm Alpha barrage to unleash against Poo. As he was powering the stars, he called down to Poo, "It's over Poo! You're out of psychic energy and don't have the power to counter my attack! I've won!"

It was then that Poo grinned. "Wrong," he said, too quietly for Poo's Nightmare to hear. However, Poo's Nightmare soon learned why Poo was grinning when he began to power a Starstorm Omega attack. Poo's Nightmare's eyes flashed at the sight and he swore. Poo had not been conserving psychic power just because he was low, he was doing so so that he could launch a final attack when the Nightmare had used up all of his power and, thus, could not defend against Poo's final attack. Poo's Nightmare saw that he could do nothing except try to take out Poo before Poo took him out. He unleashed his Starstorm barrage on Poo just as Poo had finished powering his own Starstorm Omega barrage. Poo unleashed his own Starstorm to counter His Nightmare's Starstorm barrage. The two attacks streaked towards each other and collided in midair. The stronger Starstorm Omega, however, was easily able to power through the weaker Starstorm Alpha and despite the large numbers of explosions in midair, a large number of the stars managed to get through and strike Poo's Nighmare.

The Nightmare was driven back with each hit, the first one merely knocking the wind out of him. The second star struck and exploded, tossing him backwards through the air. The Nightmare landed on his head, cracking his skull and knocking him unconscious. The third and fourth stars were the ones to finish him off. The third star struck him and drilled a hole into his chest, while the fourth star followed closely after and struck him in the head and exploded, vaporizing the body of Poo's Nightmare. The rest of the stars merely cratered the remains of the throne room. Once the attack was finished, the battle had ended. Poo emerged victorious.

Just over where Poo's Nightmare had been when he had been destroyed, a swirl of white energy appeared. Poo could sense that this was the energy signature that he had sensed before, and was likely his ticket back to the others, for he sensed that something terrible was happening. As such, he quickly stepped into the vortex and let the light overtake him.

Inside the vortex, he was able to hear the final notes of the Eight Melodies song. He heard the song play back in its entirety. After the song had played, the images of all eight Sanctuaries flooded into his mind. He visualized each and every one of them and could sense the energy emanating from them. He also sensed their power and energy flowing into his own body. As the energy came onto him and entered his body, mind, and soul, he felt his own power increase dramatically. While he did not learn any new moves, he could feel himself being able to increase the damage dealt by his techniques while using only a fraction of the psychic power he used to. He also felt more psychic energy enter his own body as well, along with an increase to his health and stamina as well. "So this is what it was like for Ness," he said, remembering how Ness described the sensation of being powered up from beating His Nightmare during the War Against Giygas. Once the images left his mind, Poo felt himself being whisked away again, and back to the palace in the moon.

Back inside the palace, while Giygas was toying with Jeff, Paula was the first of the human psychics to awaken. When she awakened, she quickly looked around for her friends, and saw Giygas telekinetically strangling Jeff. She was horrified at the sight. What was Giygas doing? Why was he attacking Jeff? Had Ness been right all along? All of these questions raced through her mind as she quickly powered a blast of PSI Thunder and unleashed it against Giygas, hoping to distract him from Jeff and cause him to release her friend. The lightning struck Giygas and did not interact with a shield of any sort. This surprised Paula, who had suspected that Giygas would have had a shield already up. Giygas was thrown through the air by Paula's attack and he landed a few yards away. The attack was more than enough to release Jeff from Giygas's grip. Paula rushed over to help Jeff get up. They then turned to face Giygas.

"Why are you doing this?" Paula asked furiously. "I thought we were allies!"

Giygas merely laughed. "For a time, I actually had sided with you against my people," Giygas told her. "But a conversation with my father convinced me that my place was with them. It is my people's mandate, their destiny, their purpose, to rid the universe of any other psychic species. We cannot allow a power greater than our own to exist."

"So you'll just continue to go throughout the universe wiping out every single race you come across?" Paula grilled.

"Yes," Giygas answered succinctly. He then unleashed a blast of lightning at Paula, but she raised a PSI Shield Sigma over herself and Jeff. Giygas grinned as the lightning streaked towards her, but as it struck them, something that neither Giygas, nor Paula, had expected. Paula's psychic shield stopped the lightning before it had managed to strike either Paula or Jeff. It splashed against shield harmlessly and was deflected away. Both Giygas and Paula gasped at the stunning revelation. After a second, though, Paula gave a grin. Things had changed. Giygas was about to launch another attack when he sensed another attack coming in. He looked to his right and found stream of blue orbs of energy rushing towards him. He barely managed to get his shield up to block the incoming stars before they struck. Again, though, there was something different about this attack. This attack managed to knock down his shields a level, something that an initial barrage of such an attack had been unable to do beforehand. Giygas glanced over at the scene and found Poo standing by Ness, his hands outstretched.

"So Giygas was loyal to the PSI Aliens after all," he said in a low, hard voice. "I should have seen it before now. Ness did." Paula and Jeff quickly went to Poo's side and the three formed a united front against Giygas, protecting Ness from any of his advances.

"Move out of my way," Giygas commanded. "Ness is the strongest of you and as such, he must die, one way or the other."

The others did not budge, though. Paula merely extended her psychic shield over Ness and replied coldly, "You'll have to get through us first."

Giygas grinned. "That can be accomplished fairly easily," he commented.

The Chosen Four were not intimidated by Giygas's comment. Things had changed. They were a lot more powerful now than they had been in their first battle against Giygas. And they were quite eager to show the new improvements to their power.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22:

Ness opened his eyes and found himself standing in a pool of purple water, or what Ness hoped was water. The water went all the way up to Ness's shoulders. He looked around and saw a series of cliffs and ledges that were too high for him to reach. He saw that the pool was not a pool, so much as a small river. He instantly recognized this location as the Sea of Eden, a location inside his mind. It represented the evil part of Ness's mind. He knew what to expect here, Krakens and His Nightmare, or something like that. The question that he had, at first, though was what he was doing here. He had already unlocked the power of His Sanctuaries and could use the power of the Earth, so he did not know what more would be gained by being inside his Magicant. Even more, was the fact that Giygas had attacked him. That could be the answer, though. If Giygas was attacking him, then he was being mentally attacked and this was the field of battle. Ness knew what to expect since he had been in here before, though, so he began to wade through the water.

He waded through the water, following the path of the sea and after a while, he came across a Kraken, a green serpent-like enemy that had a huge mouth and was breathing fire. The Kraken swam over to Ness and began to attack by breathing fire at Ness. Since Ness was in the water, he was not able to dodge the attack very effectively, but he knew that the fire would not be able to burn him underwater. Ness ducked and completely submerged himself in the water and the stream of fire fanned out over him. The Kraken then directed the fire down into the water, where it hit the water and heated the water, vaporizing it and generating a large burst of steam, but Ness was already swimming away from the stream of fire. Still, he could feel the water heating up and he knew that he had to do something.

Ness considered using PSI Rockin for a moment, but he quickly decided against it. PSI Rockin consumed a great deal of psychic energy, which he was already pretty low on, and the Kraken had previously shown itself able to withstand a single blast of Rockin, even at its Omega level. Not only that, but he knew that he would likely need his Special Cakes for dealing with His Nightmare later, so he did not want to needlessly use one up now. He remembered that last time, when he used an item in Magicant, it disappeared in the real world as well, which only made him more hesitant to use such items now. He did not know if this was going to be the case here, but he did not want to take any chances. He knew that he would have to defeat at least three Krakens before being able to reach the center of his Magicant and encounter His Nightmare, or whatever enemy Giygas had placed at the center of the Sea of Eden. Ness quickly hatched a plan for fighting the Kraken. He decided to charge forward towards the Kraken and engage it in close combat. It would likely hurt for a bit, but he knew that it would be better in the long run. Ness waded towards the Kraken, who decided to use what it called a Crashing Boom Bang attack, which was similar to PSI Thunder Beta. Ness could only grin. Today must have been his lucky day. The Kraken emitted the lightning from his mouth and launched a lightning attack against Ness. The familiar metallic clang was heard as the lightning struck Ness and was reflected back at the Kraken, a telltale sign of Ness's Franklin Badge at work. The reflected lightning struck the Kraken in the head and the Kraken roared in pain and rage. Unfortunately, for the Kraken, the beast was completely unable to move. This allowed Ness to wade in close to the Kraken and deliver some nasty hits to the head with his baseball bat. The Kraken tried to move as Ness swung away at the Kraken, using its head as a practice dummy, but it was unable to do so. Eventually, the Kraken fell into the water with a tremendous splash and remained still, either unconscious or dead. Regardless of its final fate, Ness had won the fight and proceeded to make his way past the Kraken.

As Ness followed the path that would eventually take him to his goal, he found several familiar spires jutting out of the water. These were only there for decoration, though. They were not parts of enemies or enemy generators. Ness proceeded to move past the first spire as he turned left and waded further into the sea. Ness soon waded past another spire and approached a small island in the sea that was surrounded by rocks. He waded to his left to pass the island and went by it. He eventually came upon a triangle of spires and just past them was another island. It was not long before the second Kraken noticed him. The Kraken swam on over to Ness, opening this second fight with a Crashing Boom Bang Attack. This was fine with Ness, who merely swam towards the Kraken, making no attempt to dodge the lightning attack. The lightning struck Ness and was reflected back at the Kraken, a metallic clang sounding as the Franklin Badge reflected the lightning back at the beast. The lightning struck the Kraken and it roared in surprise and pain. This Kraken, however, was not paralyzed by his reflected attack, so Ness knew that this fight would be a bit tougher than the last.

Ness considered using one of his two remaining Super Bombs on the Kraken. The Super Bombs were powerful and they would allow him to inflict an awful lot of damage in a big hurry. The only issue was, though, that they would not likely be enough to defeat the Kraken, so Ness would eventually have to close to melee range anyway in order to defeat the Kraken. In the end, Ness decided against using the bombs, opting to save them for His Nightmare, and he proceeded to wade towards the Kraken.

The Kraken recovered from his own reflected attack and decided to try a different approach. This time, the Kraken utilized PSI Flash Beta. A flash of green light was emitted by the beast and spread out, washing over Ness in the process. Unfortunately for the Kraken, though, Ness's Star Pendant protected him from the effects of PSI Flash. The Kraken roared in protest as Ness neared the beast. Now, with nothing left to lose, the Kraken unleashed a breath of fire at Ness. Ness ran head first into the fire and let the attack strike him. Again, thanks to his Star Pendant, he was resistant to the attack and only suffered minimal damage. Ness powered his way through the fire and reached the Kraken. Now within melee range, Ness drew out his Legendary Bat and repeatedly swung at the Kraken, hitting him on the head and in the mouth. With each hit, the Kraken was dazed, but it still struck back at Ness. The Kraken opened its maw and bit down on Ness, trying to devour him. The maw closed in around Ness, but Ness was not too worried. Ness merely hit the beast in the mouth again, knocking some teeth out of the beast's mouth, which only caused the Kraken to roar in pain and protest. Ness used his strength to pry open the mouth of the Kraken. Once it was open, he leapt out of the Kraken's mouth and landed back in the water. He then waded back to the Kraken and finished the monster with one more blow to the head. The force of the blow caused the monster to rear back and fall backwards into the water with a tremendous splash. The ripples from the splash spread out over the water as the Kraken remained still. With two Krakens down, Ness continued to follow the path to his destination, a rocky island at the end of the Sea of Eden. Looking out into the distance, he could already see the outline of the island.

Ness continued to progress towards the island. He looked off into the distance in order to try to spot the final Kraken. He did not have to look for very long, for he spotted the Kraken just as he came upon one of the spires that had surrounded the island with a golden Evil Mani Mani statue on it, which Ness recognized as His Nightmare. The statue looked like a human figure with his arms folded across his chest, holding a cane of some sort. Upon spotting Ness, the Kraken swam right towards him, unleashing a Crashing Boom Bang lightning attack. Just as had been with the previous Krakens, Ness's Franklin Badge reflected the attack right back at the Kraken, a metallic clang ringing out when the lightning struck Ness and was reflected. The lightning struck the Kraken and caused it to rear back and roar in pain as electricity arced around its body. Ness took this opportunity to wade through the water and approach the Kraken. The Kraken quickly recovered from its own attack and took the offensive once more. This time, the beast opened its maw and unleashed a blast of flame right at Ness. Ness ducked beneath the water to avoid the flames. The flames struck the water and were extinguished, but they still managed to heat the water and boil off some of it. Steam rose as the water bubbled. Still, there was no sign of Ness. The Kraken looked all around for the psychic boy, doing its best to make sure that Ness did not manage to land a sneak attack on him.

Ness surfaced behind the beast and upon surfacing he drew his bat once more and hammered the Kraken's tail. The Kraken roared and turned to face Ness once more. It opened its maw and tried to devour Ness. Ness, for his part, waited and wound up, as if he was preparing to hit a baseball. When the Kraken's head was low enough, Ness swung with all of his might. Ness could hear the crack of bones and cartilage as the bat impacted the Kraken's head. The force of the impact sent the Kraken's head into the air and the beast involuntarily reared again. The head of the beast then fell back down towards Ness, this time its mouth closed. Ness readied himself again and when the beast's head was within range again, Ness swung with all of his might for a second time. The second swing was all it took to take down the Kraken. The beast promptly fell back into the water and ceased to move. Ness proceeded to make his way past the fallen Kraken and towards the small island in the middle of the sea.

Ness arrived at the island and he could see the Mani Mani Statue standing on top the small island waiting for Ness. Ness approached the small steps that would take him out of the sea and onto the island. He climbed the few steps and found himself face-to-face with His Nightmare. "Welcome back, Ness," the Nightmare began. "As you well know, I'm the evil part of your brain. Giygas has infused me with energy once more, so here I am again. You can't ever defeat me because you are the one who forced me into being. You, who are all noble and good. Things will end differently this time."

With that, the statue began to glow and it emitted a glorious light that was supposed to be equivalent to PSI Flash Omega. Ness, however, was wearing his Star Pendant so he was completely unaffected by the light. Ness returned the favor by drawing out his bat and taking a mighty swing at the golden statue. The bat struck the statue and a loud clang rang out over the entire sea. Ness's hands shook as the bat struck the statue, as if the statue had been made out of solid steel. The statue, however, did not budge, and showed no external signs of damage. Despite this, though, Ness figured that he had to have inflicted some damage to His Nightmare. Still, it was not nearly enough to cause His Nightmare to be concerned. Ness knew that as long as His Nightmare had its psychic shield raised, that psychic attacks were just a waste of energy. However, since Ness could not raise a psychic shield of his own, His Nightmare currently held a significant advantage, an advantage that the Nightmare used when it unleashed a blast of PSI Rockin Alpha. A voice rang out over the sea, yelling, "PSI Rockin Alpha!"

Immediately, a flash of lines and geometric shapes of energy rained down upon Ness. The blast hit Ness and exploded in a blast of light and sound. Since Ness was psychic, he was able to limit the damage he sustained, but the blast did send him flying through the air. Ness landed in the water with a splash. Ripples in the water spread out for a few seconds before Ness resurfaced and swam back to the small island. Ness climbed back onto the island and quickly tried a new tactic, pulling out one of his two remaining Super Bombs. He pushed the activation stud and tossed it to His Nightmare. Ness's Nightmare responded by quickly raising a Shield Beta over itself. The bomb bounced on the ground and exploded a few inches away from Ness's Nightmare. Ness quickly dove back down into the water to avoid the reflected shrapnel that came his way. Since the bomb exploded on the island, most of the shockwave and concussion was absorbed by the ground and not transmitted into the water, which meant that Ness did not have to sacrifice his hearing in order to avoid being skewered by shrapnel. Ness quickly surfaced and decided that it was time to make His Nightmare pay for the mistake it had just made. Ness quickly powered a blast of PSI Rockin Omega in his right hand. Ness knew that he only had enough psychic energy for one blast of Rockin Omega, but he hoped that it would be enough so that any other attack he used would be sufficient to weaken the counter shield over His Nightmare's body and destroy it. Ness targeted the Nightmare and unleashed his attack. The scarlet ball of psychic energy rocketed towards the immobile statue. It was now that Ness's Nightmare had realized its mistake. By raising a Shield Beta, it had negated the PSI Shield Beta that had protected the Nightmare from psychic attacks. The ball struck the for all intents and purposes unprotected Nightmare and detonated, engulfing the statue in a globe of psychic energy. Even worse for the statue was the fact that Ness had scored a direct hit on the very place where his bat had smashed into the statue earlier. As a result, Ness scored a Smash hit, which increased the damage inflicted on the Nightmare. The scarlet globe of energy eventually dissipated, and the Nightmare emerged from the vanishing field, smoking and with multiple cracks and chips in its body, but still alive. The Nightmare decided to stop playing around and began to power its own PSI Rockin Omega attack. While this version of PSI Rockin Omega was merely Ness's older, imperfect version, it would still be enough to kill Ness with one hit.

Ness knew that this last exchange would decide the entire battle. If he was able to hit first with a powerful enough attack, then he would be able to destroy His Nightmare and escape this realm once again. If he was slower than his Nightmare, he would die, since he did not have enough psychic energy left to use both PSI Rockin Beta, the highest level of Rockin that he had the energy to use, and Lifeup of any level. He quickly powered the ball of PSI Rockin Beta and prepared to launch it at the Nightmare just as the Nightmare cried out, "PSI Rockin Omega!"

Unfortunately, Ness's Nightmare launched his attack before Ness was able. Ness knew that he would not be able to hold out against His Nightmare in a Rockin Beta vs. Rockin Omega battle. As the Nightmare's attack streaked towards him, he dug down deep and something incredible happened. A sensation came to him and he felt a new reserve of psychic power that he had never felt before. Knowing that that reserve was his only chance, he used it to increase the power of his Rockin Beta to its Omega level and the ball of Rockin grew until it was the size of a small boulder, and then Ness felt more energy enter it. No, this was not Rockin Omega; this was beyond what he knew to be Rockin's Omega level…or was it? The large boulder of Rockin compacted in size until it was merely the size of a grapefruit. This was far more powerful a move than Ness had ever seen before, possibly even a match for Giygas's PSI Special Omega. This was his true power, and it both terrified and exhilarated him at the same time. Ness grinned and his eyes flashed as he unleashed this new version of PSI Rockin Omega right at His Nightmare. His pulsing scarlet ball of Rockin Omega instantly overpowered the PSI Rockin Omega of His Nightmare and continued unimpeded towards His Nighmare. Ness's ball of Rockin struck the Nightmare and the Nightmare was once again engulfed in a globe of psychic energy. Ness could hear a scream emanate from His Nightmare as the globe of psychic energy engulfed it. This was one of the times where the Nightmare's immobility came back to haunt it. Ness then fell to his knees on the island, having exhausted all of his psychic energy. Sweat dripped from his face as he looked down in the rock. He raised his head to see the globe of psychic energy dissipate. Once the Earth-shattering globe of psychic energy dissipated, there was nothing left but a burn mark, and figure of what looked to be a copy of himself, but appeared to be ethereal. Ness cautiously approached this apparition, not knowing whether or not it was a friend or foe. When he approached the apparition, the apparition told him, "You have done well, Ness. You have conquered the evil in your heart, mind, and soul once again." The apparition paused before continuing, "And you unlocked your true power in the process." The apparition gave a chuckle. "It's ironic, really. In his attempt to kill you quickly and easily, Giygas made it possible for you to unlock your true psychic potential, awaken the true power of PSI Rockin, and allowed you the circumstances where you could learn to control it without threatening the Earth in the process. You will need this power when you face off against Giygas and the other PSI Aliens. Go now," he told Ness. "Your friends are in dire need of your assistance."

With that, Ness felt himself being whisked away from the Sea of Eden, and being taken back to his friends.

When Ness opened his eyes, back in the palace. The light that he had stepped into had disappeared. It took him a moment for him to get his bearings. Once he did, he took stock of himself. He still had both of his Super Bombs, which was good. It seemed as if he did not lose any items that he used in Magicant this time. Even better, though, was the fact that he had been fully restored to health, both physically and psychically. Good. Now he could engage in battle if it was needed. As if on cue, he heard the sounds of battle echoing not too far away. He looked over and saw that his friends were engaged in a battle against Giygas once again. None of the combatants had noticed that he had awakened.

In the battle, Paula had charged towards Giygas while Jeff used his remaining normal Multi Bottle Rocket on Giygas. The rocket leapt into the air and headed straight for Giygas. The warheads quickly split off from the main rocket and individually pelted Giygas's shield. The shield flared as it was assaulted by the warheads, but it did not give way. Still, the others were surprised that it was not reflecting their own attacks back at them. They suspected that Giygas was still toying with them, but they did not care about that at the moment. At the moment, they needed to protect Ness and divert Giygas's attention away from him. Paula added a blast of PSI Torrent Omega to the attack. The wave of water-based psychic energy washed over Giygas's shield and weakened it further, but not enough to collapse it. Next came a psychic attack from Poo in the form of PSI Starstorm Omega. Dozens of blue orbs rained down on Giygas, striking his shield, causing it to flare with each impact. Still, the shield held, though Giygas was breathing heavily, which meant that he was pushing a lot of his energy into the shield, and not into his attacks. Still, it would only be a matter of time before Giygas counterattacked once more. And it seemed as if the time was coming, for Giygas began to power an emerald green ball of pulsing psychic energy. He was going to use PSI Special Omega. Ness, however, was not about to let that happen.

Ness began to power his own blast of PSI Rockin. He instantly powered his blast of Rockin to what he viewed to be its Gamma level, though Ness wondered if there was even a distinction between the levels since it was so natural to him to just use the attack at full power, which had once been at its Omega level, but now was merely at its Gamma level. The ball of Rockin grew until it was the size of a baseball, which surprised Ness greatly. He smiled. The feeling was incredible. Despite having planet-shattering power, he was able to control it much more easily than before. It was time he showed Giygas his mistake in attacking his mind and reawakening his Nightmare. He unleashed his ball of PSI Rockin against Giygas. The pulsing red ball of psychic energy rocketed towards Giygas, causing his friends to blink as they retreated from Giygas. At first, Giygas did not know why the humans were retreating. He only found out as Ness's ball of Rockin impacted his shield and detonated, covering him in an expanding sphere of psychic energy. Giygas did not even turn to face Ness, for he knew that this attack was Ness's handiwork. He had awakened. But things were different now. He could feel his shield straining significantly against Ness's attack. He knew that Ness's attack was powerful, and that the others had been launching repeated assaults on his shield, but he was still surprised at how much his shield strength was decreasing. It was as if this attack had far more power than before. He was not all that surprised, though. What surprised Giygas was the fact that he had not sensed Ness power up the attack. Normally, Ness had to power up an attack like Rockin. This time, though, he had caught Giygas completely off guard. Giygas was not concerned yet, though. He still had his shield, and PSI Rockin cost Ness a significant amount of psychic energy. Ness could not use an attack like that very often and have enough energy to use his other techniques. What happened next, however, _did_ concern Giygas. Giygas felt his shield crack and shatter. The remaining energy from the ball now attacked at his exposed flesh. His flesh began to burn and pucker. Black marks formed as his skin was burned away, forming smoking dark blue patches. Eventually, the ball dissipated.

After the ball dissipated, Giygas emerged from the field, burned and smoking. It was the first time he had been damaged in a battle like this since his fight with Maria. He had underestimated the humans and not pushed enough energy into his shield. He had toyed with them and allowed them to weaken his shield, which was taken out by Ness's attack. He now turned to face Ness. The others also ran to him and formed up around him. Immediately upon arriving near Ness, Paula raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party. Giygas hesitated now against the party. He knew that he had the power to defeat them, but his dallying had cost him precious power earlier, as had his mock battle against his father and his battle against his Magicant's representation of Maria. He still had more power than the others, but with that PSI Shield Omega, he feared the potential of his attacks being reflected right back at him. After all, Paula's PSI Shield Sigma had blocked his PSI Thunder attack, an attack that should have penetrated and collapsed her psychic shield. If her PSI Shield Sigma had actually blocked his PSI Thunder, then chances were that their PSI Shield Omega would reflect his lightning back at him.

Giygas now considered his options. He could stay and fight, and hope that Ness was not more powerful than he thought, which was likely not the case since Ness's other psychic friends had gained a great deal of power after emerging from their Magicants. Or, he could leave the fight and take them on another day. He knew that they would be come after the PSI Alien presence on Mount Itoi again since there were psychic children on the mountain right now being turned into living psychic weapons and batteries. They would rescue the children because it was their way. Still, he did not want to retreat from them right now. The fact that he was even considering the possibility of them emerging victorious made him sick to his stomach. Still, there was little to gain by remaining in this palace inside the moon, and everything to lose if Ness was a lot stronger than before or if Ness or the others managed to get lucky against him. They were quite skilled in a physical battle and if there was any area where he was vulnerable, it was in a physical fight.

Soon, Giygas's decision became easier. He sensed the arrival of the PSI Alien fleet over the moon, something that Paula and Poo also noticed.

"They're here!" Paula and Poo cried out as one to Ness and Jeff. Ness and the others quickly backed away from Giygas, who grinned.

"We'll continue this another time," he said in a sinister tone as he disappeared from their sight.

Paula and the others breathed a sigh of relief as they soon revealed that they were on their last legs. They had pushed a lot of energy into the fight against Giygas. Their feeling of relief, however, was quickly replaced by dread. With Giygas now gone, chances were that the moon base was nothing but a waste of resources. And there was still a way to deal with Ness and the others by trapping them on the moon by destroying the Sky Runner II. Ness quickly gathered the others to him and he teleported them out of the palace and back to Luna Base on the lower floors.

Upon appearing inside Luna Base, the sensation of the enemy fleet increased. They were close, too close. It was now a race to get off the moon before the enemy managed to find them and kill them. The party fled towards the tunnel that took them back to the Sky Runner II. They entered the tunnel and fled through it as fast as they could travel, while allowing Jeff to keep up with them. Eventually, they emerged from the tunnel and ran out to the landing pad that housed the Sky Runner II. Jeff pulled out his remote and had the Sky Runner II lower its boarding ramp. The ramp lowered and Ness and the others quickly boarded the saucer.

Once they were onboard, Jeff pushed a button on his remote and the boarding ramp retracted behind them and the hatch closed. He quickly took his station in the pilot's seat and initiated the startup sequence. A low to high-pitched hum was heard as the ship came to life. Once that was finished, Jeff raised the shields before taking off. Once the shields were up, he lifted the Sky Runner II off the landing platform. Looking up, the group could see the large shape of a space cruiser looming over them. Once they were clear of the landing pad, the Sky Runner II quickly rocketed away from the base as it exploded in a magnificent display of fire and shrapnel. Luna Base was no more. Now, all they had to do was evade the battleship's guns until they were out of the firing range of the behemoth.

Jeff uttered a prayer of thanks that the Sky Runner II was faster than any of the enemy ships, at least at sub-light speed. Already, he saw several UFOs being disgorged from the belly of the cruiser, but they were too far away to be any real significant threat, being at least a couple of miles away from the Sky Runner II. Still, the ships did their best to stop the Sky Runner II by deploying their cannons and taking potshots at the Sky Runner. Green energy bolts flashed past the cockpit, with several bolts dispersing a ways in front of the Sky Runner II, evidently reaching the limit of their range. Ness Paula and Poo took the weapons stations and charged the quad energy cannons. The two teens swiveled the guns to the rear and took shots at the pursuing UFOs, trying to get them off their backs, even though they were leaving the UFOs' firing range. A few scarlet energy bolts managed to tag a UFO and blow it apart. The greater threat was the cruiser. Knowing that the ship's hyperdrive could allow it to catch the Sky Runner or cut it off, Jeff had the Sky Runner II spin around while using its own momentum to carry it away from the UFOs. It was now that Jeff decided that he would deploy the strongest of his weapons against the pursuing cruiser. Jeff remembered that the Mr. Saturns had told him that the fusion missiles they had given him had a yield of twenty kilotons. That meant that the warheads combined would only produce an eighty kiloton blast. Jeff felt that that would not be sufficient to breach the shields of the cruiser, even if they hit with all the missiles in one spot. Fortunately, his scanners found a weak point in the shields of the vessel. It was located on the bridge of the cruiser. Jeff grinned. Perhaps there was a way to deal with the cruiser after all. He targeted the bridge of the cruiser, a tower jutting out from the top of the ship, and armed the missiles. Once the tone became steady, indicating a weapons lock, he pushed the button and unleashed his four fusion missiles.

The missiles erupted from the belly of the Sky Runner II and streaked towards the PSI Alien cruiser. The few Fighter UFOs that were flying escort attempted to shoot down the missiles but were unable to do so. Green bolts of energy sailed past each and every one of the missiles. The missiles then converged on the bridge of the starship and exploded, striking the weak spot in the shields perfectly. Indeed, the shield weakness did prove to be the cruiser's undoing. The first two hits stressed the weak shields in the area to the point of breaking. The third missile broke through the shields and managed to inflict damage to the ship itself, blowing away the bridge of the vessel, a stream of flame erupting from the ship. The fourth and final missile struck the unprotected hull of the ship and detonated. The detonation of the missile consumed the ship in a massive nuclear fireball. The ship flew apart, sending debris flying all throughout space.

After witnessing the cruiser's destruction, Jeff turned the Sky Runner II back around and prepared to make the daylong trip back to Earth at the best possible speed. While he knew that he would beat the main fleet by a fairly large margin, he was not so sure about the smaller Fighter UFOs. He worried that they might be able to come in and attack Earth's military forces, keeping them off balance until the fleet arrived. He did not worry about it too much, though. All he concentrated on now was getting back to Saturn Valley so they could prepare to storm Mount Itoi and not only rescue the kidnapped psychic children, but also take the fight to Giygas.

On the bridge of the flagship of the PSI Alien fleet, Giygas stood to the right of his father and his younger brother near the throne chair of the ship. He was not grinning, as was the rest of his family. Instead, his expression was a mask of sternness and seriousness. He berated himself in his head for having failed to kill the Chosen Four. All of that planning, even when he still actually wished to help the Chosen Four, he had always left the option open for betraying them and giving himself a good opportunity to kill them should the need, or wish, arise. He had had that opportunity in the palace after the eight Sanctuaries had been unlocked and claimed by himself, Paula, and Poo. In his attack, he had underestimated them and was caught off guard by their sudden increase in power. The ironic thing was that this increase in power, mostly due to the release of their restraints and inhibitions with regards to using their powers was the very thing that now made it so easy to choose his own people over the humans. Yes there were humans like the Chosen Four and Maria. But there were also monsters among the human race as well. At the back of his mind, he used that as one of his primary excuses for trying to exterminate humanity, rather than save it as the Chosen Four, and once, he, had been trying to do. He simply viewed humanity as unworthy of salvation. Now that he had left the fight, he knew that he would face the Chosen Four once more in earnest not too long from now. Assuming they survived the self-destruct sequence of the base, they would most certainly go to Mount Itoi to rescue the children that were trapped inside the mountain.

Giygas looked over at the viewscreen as the image of the base appeared on the screen. He watched as his father looked down at the tactical station and told the PSI Lord manning the station, "Initiate Luna Base's self-destruct sequence. Blow up or suffocate those kids at once."

"It shall be done, Lord Goog," the tactical officer responded with a hint of pleasure and sadism. The PSI Alien, almost identical in appearance to Goog except for being over a century younger than Goog. That was one thing that Goog liked about Giegue that he still was perturbed about with Giygas. Giygas demonstrated no pleasure in the slaughter of a species. Even when Giygas had been toying with the others, the seeming pleasure was not there. It had seemed as if he was trying to impress his father, but was only going through the motions. The smiles and grins were present, but the feelings were not And as a result, he had not fought the Chosen Four at full power back on the palace beneath the surface of the moon. Giegue, however, always enjoyed destroying a species, even when he was a child. He had begged his father to allow him to kill Giygas's adoptive mother on numerous occasions, however Goog had always refused. Goog had always wanted Giygas to be the one who killed Maria. And finally, Giygas had done so in his mind. Giygas knew that the Maria he slaughtered in Magicant was merely a representation of his attachment and love for Maria, in essence, his good side, but still, he felt that it was indeed an accomplishment to be able to slaughter even an image of his mother the way he had.

Giygas stared at the screen as the seconds counted down for the base's self-destruct sequence. He had noticed that one of their cruisers, a useful ship that had decent weaponry but also had substandard shields and a glaring shield weakness near the bridge that had caused most of the ships of that class to be either retired from service and replaced with more advanced cruisers, or used as mere cannon fodder vessels, broke off in pursuit of something. This did not interest Giygas at the moment; the only thing that interested Giygas was the destruction of Luna Base, and hopefully, the Chosen Four.

Giygas focused back on the clock to check the time remaining. Thirty seconds showed on the clock. Giegue leaned over and whispered to him, "It's gonna be magical seeing that base go up with those losers still inside."

Giygas gave no comment. He merely grunted in approval, nodding his head. Giegue's dreams, however, were shattered as the group saw a flying saucer rise from the base and begin to rocket away from the base. Giygas checked the time, ten seconds remained. The time counted down until the clock reached zero and a flash of light lit up the screen. A mushroom cloud of fire formed for a brief second before vanishing due to the lack of air outside the base. Still, there was enough smoke to form a mushroom cloud where the base had once stood. Giygas and the others then watched as the cruiser gave chase to the Sky Runner II. Giygas actually intended to teleport over to the Sky Runner II in order to destroy it and space the Chosen Four, but his attempts to reach it were rebuffed. They had raised the craft's shields. Teleportation into the craft was now impossible, and they were too far away for him to get a reliable bead on them, and accelerating further out of range. A flight of Fighter UFOs gave chase and took shots at the fleeing craft, but failed to score any hits. The return fire from the Sky Runner, itself, was only able to take down one UFO in the process.

Giygas then saw the Sky Runner II quickly spin around and face the approaching cruiser while still fleeing the UFOs. He had a bad feeling about what was about to happen, for he knew that the Mr. Saturns loaded fusion missiles onto the Sky Runner II. If those missiles were powerful enough, then the cruiser would be in for a world of pain due to its weak shielding. And if the Sky Runner II hit the cruiser in its shield weak spot, then there was a chance that the cruiser would be destroyed. Indeed, that was what happened as the Sky Runner II disgorged its missiles towards the cruiser. The first two missiles struck at the shield weak spot weakening its shields. The third missile breached the shields and inflicted hull damage to the ship. The fourth missile proceeded to destroy the cruiser, sending it up in a flash of light and flame. Giygas grimaced. It was a waste of a perfectly good ship. Now, the Sky Runner II was out of range and racing towards Earth at maximum speed.

Giygas then stepped down from the pedestal that Giegue's throne was mounted on. "Where do you think you're going?" Giegue asked. "I'm about to give the okay to obliterate the Earth."

"Don't do it, Giegue," Giygas told him. "Not yet."

"Why not?" Giegue responded, his eyes flashing with rage.

"Because there are still human psychics that could prove useful to us," Goog answered for his oldest son. "They can be used to control the latest psychic robots. Once we have the next production models finished, then you can destroy the Earth."

Giegue did not argue the point. As long as he and his people were eventually allowed to destroy the Earth and humanity, he was fine.

"Speaking of which," Goog began, "Giygas, you should get back to Mount Itoi. We'll need to transfer the psychic children to a transport so we can take them to the fleet."

"Yes father," Giygas responded.

Before Giygas left the ship, Goog added, "Oh, and one more thing. Activate the new defenses on Mount Itoi. We don't need the Chosen Four managing to breach the mountain again."

Giygas nodded. "Understood," Giygas responded, and he promptly disappeared from the bridge of the ship. Goog then suggested to Giegue that he order a cruiser or two, along with a carrier, to warp to Earth and launch an orbital strike on the planet in order to keep the Earth militaries occupied. Giegue agreed and gave the order. Goog and Giegue then proceeded to laugh. All of their plans were being set into motion. Soon, the human race would be destroyed, one way or the other.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23:

The trip back to Earth took less than a full day to complete. During that time, Ness and the others took turns resting and relaxing as much as they could. Time was of the essence now since the fleet had already arrived at the moon and they could not afford to waste any more time. First, Paula was the one to go back and take a rest. After her, Jeff went back, then Poo. Finally, on the last leg of the trip, Ness went back to rest. Before resting, though, he secretly tested out some of his new powers. Indeed, he now used far less energy when powering his blasts of PSI Rockin, even when powering it to the former Omega, now Gamma, level. He did not dare to power a PSI Rockin Omega, since he knew that the true PSI Rockin Omega was very energy consuming, but also overwhelmingly powerful. He really did feel that if he released an uncontrolled full power PSI Rockin Omega blast against a planet, that there was a chance that said planet might well be destroyed by the attack. After the training, Ness fell onto the pallet and fell asleep.

He was awakened a few hours later when Jeff's voice sounded over the loudspeaker. "Attention everyone, we are about to arrive at Earth. I need everyone at their stations immediately."

Ness quickly jumped off the pallet and ran into the cockpit. There, he took his station replacing Paula as the copilot. Paula went back to one of the weapons consoles. Without Giygas onboard, there was no one to man the ship status console at the rear of the cockpit cabin. Once the Sky Runner II arrived at Earth, Jeff checked his sensors noticed that there was a large cruiser flying over the Earth, firing down at the planet. Jeff looked out of the cockpit and found that the ship was targeting parts of North America, particularly in the United States of America. Jeff activated his long-range sensors and identified the cities that were being targeted and/or had already suffered damage. So far, the ship had fired on Philadelphia, Richmond, Sacramento, Hollywood, with Sacramento and Hollywood having been all but destroyed. Richmond and Philadelphia were still relatively intact, but they, along with several other cities and towns, had suffered noticeable damage. Jeff then focused his attention to the alien forces in orbit. Another ship was next to the cruiser, but it looked to be heavily damaged, likely from a nuclear missile. There was also a debris field spreading out from an area next to the first cruiser. Jeff surmised that this was the debris field of a cruiser or other ship that had been destroyed. Jeff then detected a series of objects headed straight up to the other ships. One of the missiles struck the wounded carrier and detonated. The carrier cracked and split apart into multiple pieces, fire erupting from each hole in the ship before being extinguished due to the lack of oxygen. The debris from the destroyed carrier spread out and the surviving cruiser had to perform evasive maneuvers in order to avoid being struck the larger pieces of debris from the carrier. It would not matter, though, for a series of missiles was now impacting the bow of the cruiser. The missiles detonated in bright flashes of blue light, highly indicative that the missiles were nuclear missiles. The shields of the cruiser flared with each strike. The first missile inflicted only moderate damage to the shields and the shields had no problems fending off the attack. The second missile quickly followed the first and struck the shields, causing them to flare again, weakening them further. This flash, however, was far brighter than the first flash, indicating that this missile had a much higher yield than the last, and Jeff was glad to have the radiation and light filter protecting the cockpit. Jeff then turned away from the ships and decided to take the longer way down to Earth in order to avoid accidentally being destroyed by the human military forces.

As he was turning away to make sure that he was out of range of the missiles' detonations, Jeff looked back on sensors. Two more flashes of light lit up the void of space as two missiles struck the shields of the craft. The shields were severely strained by the third flash of light, so much so that when the fourth missile struck the ship, the shields collapsed and flame and debris poured out of the ship from where the missile had detonated. The ship was now doomed, just like its two cohorts. One final missile streaked towards the cruiser, its target, the hole blown open by the previous nuke. The missile arrived at the hole and plowed on through, breaking through some weakened structures inside the ship before detonating inside the ship. The detonation of the missile blew the ship apart, scattering debris all throughout the orbit of Earth.

The Sky Runner proceeded to enter the Earth's atmosphere and fire burned around its hull. Even though the hull was burning, it was not suffering damage. The Sky Runner II was designed to withstand atmospheric reentry, even if it was uncontrolled. It did not take them long to be able to see the ground beneath them and even be able to identify certain landmarks. The group looked into the sky above the cockpit and found that it was currently late in the afternoon in the Midwest United States. Jeff checked his sensors and found that they were, indeed, in the midwest of the United States, so Saturn Valley was likely to be close by. Jeff decided to stop at Saturn Valley. The group needed to rearm and get some more supplies, especially Poo. On the way back to Earth, Ness and Paula had told him about the Special Cakes that they had purchased in Saturn Valley. Not only that, but Poo had also given the recipe for Brain Food Dinners to the Mr. Saturns in hope that they would be able to create some of the dishes for the rest of the party. With their newly discovered full potential, the Brain Food Dinners would be some of the best items in their arsenal, since they completely restored the health of whoever ate one, both physically and psychically. Not only that, but the Mr. Saturns had said that they would be getting in some very useful items as well.

The group soon arrived over Saturn Valley. After Jeff had gotten clearance to land, he proceeded to land the craft near a supply station so that he could refuel and rearm the vessel. Once the Sky Runner II had landed, Jeff and the others left their seats and disembarked from the craft. The first thing the group did after disembarking from the craft was to look around the valley. That was, all except for Jeff. Jeff went over the manager of the station and told the Mr. Saturn what supplies and weapons he wanted for the ship. As for the others, they continued to explore the valley once more. In the short time that they had been gone, the Mr. Saturns had already repaired most of the damage the valley had suffered in the attack by the Starmen. Ness and Paula quickly made their way to a rest stop where he decided to sit down and relax for a bit. Poo, however, went over to the item shop of Saturn Valley to check on the latest merchandise. The two teens entered the rest station and proceeded to sit for a bit. Ness noticed a television on the wall and a remote control next to the chair they were sitting in. Ness turned on the television and switched the channel to Wolf News Channel.

The news was quite dire, indeed. The reports of the destruction of Sacramento and Hollywood and that Richmond and Philadelphia had both suffered severe damage in the most recent of alien attacks. That was nothing compared to the attacks now being suffered in Europe, South America, and even in the remains of the Middle East now, though. City after city was being attacked by Starman Deluxes, and Starman Warriors, who rained down stars from their Starstorm and Starstorm Omega attacks onto the cities. The PSI Aliens were making their big push, preparing for the arrival of the rest of the fleet. Casualty reports at the time were staggering. So far, in the last thirteen years or so, almost half of the world's population had been killed or wounded by the two recent wars, and reports were still coming in. Ness and Paula soon turned off the television and decided to rest for a moment before getting down to business.

Meanwhile, back at Mount Itoi, Giygas oversaw the tests and building of the next series of psychic robots. He had a High Star Elf scientist look over the data. So far, all indications were that the children's minds were properly synchronizing with the robots' brains, as demonstrated earlier on the moon, even during the transport of the children. Giygas had noticed one problem, though. The robots were slow to respond to attack or stimulation. Giygas went over to the scientist and said, "Your report?"

The scientist looked back at him and replied, "Lord Giygas, the second series of robots is coming along nicely and should be ready for full deployment in a day or so. The first series psychic robots have passed their tests as well. The problems that they ran into on the moon have all been corrected."

"Show me," Giygas commanded.

"With pleasure," the High Star Elf scientist grinned as he went over to his console and pushed a green button. Immediately, a Juana and an Omega Borg entered a room from one of the entrances. A second later, a door slid open and a feminine black suit of armor stepped into the room at the other end. "This is the Kumatora design," the scientist informed Giygas. "She has the most raw power and natural talent of any of the other psychics we picked up, even David, who is four years her senior. The Juana and Omega Borg immediately powered up blasts of PSI Fire and PSI Freeze to use against the single Kumatora. However, the Kumatora armor instantly powered a blast of PSI Thunder Gamma and unleashed it against the two suits of armor. The Juana was felled immediately by the PSI Thunder Gamma and it fell to the ground with a hole in its chest. The Omega Borg, however, lasted a little bit longer. The Omega Borg suffered a glancing blow and lightning arced around its body, shorting out some systems in the process. Still, it was able to control its arms and point its staff at the Kumatora. However, just as it was raising its staff, the midnight black Kumatora armor appeared in front of the Omega Borg and thrust its electrified hand into the chest of the Omega Borg. The thrust broke through the armor with contemptuous ease and the Kumatora's hand emerged out the other side. Both Giygas and the scientist were left agape.

"Wow," the scientist said, astonished at the vicious attack. "She's never done that before. I wonder if there's still a remnant of the child's personality inside the robot?"

"Perhaps," Giygas replied absently. "Despite her youth, she did put up more resistance than any of the other children. She killed two Starmen and several Grays in the process of resisting capture."

"She did?" the scientist asked, astonished. He then gave a whistle. "Then I guess this shouldn't be a surprise."

"How long until you can get a group of Armors ready for defensive duty around the base?" Giygas asked.

"A few hours or so, why?"

"Because I wish to use these when the Chosen Four come knocking," Giygas answered. "They tried to rescue Kumatora before. I wonder what they'll think when they realize that they'll have to fight a robot that is using her power against them." Giygas then paused. "Just to be sure, the synchronization of the children to the robots won't result in said child's injury or death should one or all of the robots be destroyed will it?"

The scientist shook his head. "No, Master. The children will be fine and able to be synched to another series robot, though they will feel the pain that the Armors suffer, though, so they might not want to do it, if they had a choice that is." The scientist then proceeded to issue a laugh. Giygas merely studied the Kumatora robot once more and wondered if it was worth it to destroy humanity so soon. Granted there were dangerous psychics among the human race, but those had been identified and could be neutralized. There were so many others that could fill in important roles in the PSI Alien army, especially with the loss of the Atlanteans and the Faeries. Giygas just did not want to waste the humans just yet. Suddenly, he wondered what he was thinking. Humans were the enemy and had the potential be a dangerous enemy in the future. As such, they had to be destroyed. Giygas then proceeded to tell the scientist, "Good work. Make sure that the models of both series are ready by the time Ness and the others arrive. We will need them to supplement security until the rest of the Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors arrive back at the base."

"You got it, Master," the scientist said enthusiastically. "Anything else?"

"Yes," Giygas replied. "Have you had any progress in copying the brains of the children and grafting their knowledge or psychic power into the robots' semi-organic brains?"

The scientist canted his head. "Yes and no. As you know, the use of PSI as we know it requires at least a semi-organic brain. However, it also requires the proper genes. You can't simply graft knowledge or power like that onto the robots. The robots will still be limited in the power that they can use. I have made some progress, however, grafting the knowledge of how to use the power into their brains, though, but the strength of the power will still be limited to the genes that made up the organic parts of the brain."

"I see," Giygas stated flatly. "Thank you. That will be all."

The scientist then went back to work. Giygas, meanwhile, proceeded to leave the area and go back to the peak of the mountain.

Back in Saturn Valley, Poo had entered the item shop in order to check out what new items had come in. The item shop had a great supply of new items. One item in particular caught his eye. It was a round badge that looked like Ness's Franklin Badge, complete with a lightning bolt on it, but it also had letters spelling the word "SMASH" on the center of the badge. Poo went over to the clerk and asked, "Excuse me, but what is this badge, here?" He pointed to the badge that he was interested in.

"That is a Smash Franklin Badge. _Boing_," the Mr. Saturn replied. "It is a badge like a normal Franklin Badge, but reflects all projectiles, whether they are psychic or not."

This interested Poo. He knew that such a badge would do wonders for the team, especially against Giygas. "There are limitations, though," the Mr. Saturn added. "The badge will only stay on for a certain period of time. _Ding_. After that, the badge will give out and fall off you."

Poo had to admit that that was a tough limitation, but it would be godsend should they be cornered by a large group of ships, Starmen, or PSI Aliens. "How much does it cost?" Poo asked.

"Two thousand dollars. _Zoing_," the Mr. Saturn responded. "There are only a limited number of such badges produced."

Poo was not fond of the price tag, but he knew that these items would be incredibly useful. As such, he bought two such badges, knowing that he would need them later on. He paid the Mr. Saturn and then took his badges and proceeded to leave the shop.

Poo then headed towards the food shop and entered the shop. As he opened the door, a bell rang. He considered it a nice touch from the Mr. Saturns. He went over to the cashier and asked, "Have you made any of those new Brain Food Dinners that I gave you the recipes to?"

The Mr. Saturn nodded. "Yes, mister Poo. _Zing_."

The Mr. Saturn then proceeded to bring out a sample Brain Food Dinner. Poo tasted the meal it and gave a satisfied smile. "Excellent, it was made to perfect specifications. Thank you."

"You're welcome," the Mr. Saturn replied. "We only have ten ready Brain Food Dinners right now, though. We have more cooking, so if you come back later, you can get more."

"I'll take the ten you have now," Poo said kindly. "How much will it cost?"

"Zero dollars. _Zing_," the Mr. Saturn replied. "For you and your friends, the Brain Food Dinners are free."

Poo barely managed to hide his surprise. "Thank you," he said, astonished.

"Is there anything else I can sell to you?" the Mr. Saturn asked.

"Actually, yes there is," Poo answered. "Do you have any of those new Special Cakes that I've heard about?"

"Yes," the Mr. Saturn answered. "We have plenty of those, but they come with a price. They are twenty dollars each."

"That's fine," Poo said in reply. "I'll take four."

Poo then paid the cashier and received the Special Cakes. He also sold his Refreshing Herbs, since he felt that with his psychic power, that he did not need them anymore. He then thanked the Mr. Saturn again and, before leaving, he withdrew some money from the ATM near the cash register so he had four thousand dollars in his pocket. He wanted to make sure that he had enough money to buy any expensive items for the trip if they ever went short. After he was finished, he proceeded to exit the store. He then went back to the Sky Runner II where he met Jeff. There, he waited for the others to arrive so he could give them the Brain Food Dinners.

Back at the rest station, Ness and Paula had awakened and had just left, intending to go back to the item shop so that they could get some new items. They went inside the shop and were greeted by the friendly Mr. Saturn cashier. The two looked around and their eyes were drawn to the Smash Franklin Badges. After asking the Mr. Saturn about the badges, the Mr. Saturn mentioned that there was another kid who was interested in them. Upon hearing the description of the boy, the two figured that it had to have been Poo. After hearing what the badges could do, Paula told Ness, "We have to get a couple of those for each of us. These will be lifesavers against powerful enemies, and maybe they'll even help us out against Giygas."

"Yeah," Ness agreed. The two then asked, "How much are the badges?"

Their eyes went wide when they heard that the badges were two thousand dollars, each. Still, they paid the requisite money in order to get two such badges. Afterwards, they went to the ATM so that they each had over five thousand dollars in their pocket, just in case they needed to buy anything near Mount Itoi, where they were certain that the prices of commodities would be astronomical. Once they were finished, they headed over to the food shop.

Once they went to the food shop, they immediately looked around for more Special Cakes. They wanted more of the incredible cakes so that they would be able to restore their psychic energy during the long trip up Mount Itoi. They bought two more cakes for themselves and then proceeded to leave after thanking the Mr. Saturn cashier. After they left, they headed over to the Sky Runner II and reunited with the rest of the group, learning that Poo had only recently arrived back there as well.

Once they arrived at the Sky Runner II, Jeff rushed over to them and said, "Thank goodness you've arrived. I need you to look after the Sky Runner II while I go get some items and repair a certain robot," he said conspiratorially. "When the refueling and loading is done, feel free to go into the hotel and sleep there. I'll likely be working through the night."

"Sure thing," Ness and Paula replied. Paula then called over to him and said, "Hey, while you're in town, you'll want to check the Saturn Item Shop. They've got a new badge called a Smash Franklin Badge. It blocks all projectiles, not just lightning. Still, you'll want to get a couple, though, since they only have a limited amount of energy and will fall off after a time."

"Thanks," Jeff called over to them as he ran into the valley. He did not waste any time looking around or exploring the town. He knew exactly what he wanted and where he needed to go. Since the Saturn Item Shop was closer, he decided to duck in and take a look at these new Smash Franklin Badges that the others were talking about.

Upon entering the store, the Mr. Saturn cashier greeted him, saying, "Welcome to Saturn Item Shop. _Boing_. How may I help you?"

"I'm looking for Smash Franklin Badges," Jeff answered. Do you have any left?"

"Yes we do," the Mr. Saturn answered. He then directed Jeff over to a case that showcased the Smash Franklin Badges. Jeff then looked at the price tag and nearly fainted.

"Two thousand dollars?" Jeff gasped, his eyes bugging out at the sight of the price.

"Yes," the Mr. Saturn answered in a normal, for his race, tone. It was as if he did not know that two thousand dollars was a lot of money to the humans, especially for such an item.

Jeff sighed and resigned himself to having to pay the money for the badges. Of all of them, he would benefit the most from the Smash Franklin Badge. They would be lifesavers for him if he were ever to be separated from the rest of the party. Before buying the badges, though, Jeff withdrew an extra four thousand dollars, since he had a feeling that such money might be highly useful if they had to buy weapons from an arms dealer on Mount Itoi if they used up too many of their items. That, and Jeff wanted to have the money to buy some more Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets. With the cash in hand, Jeff paid for the badges. The Mr. Saturn said in a cheerful voice, "Thank you. Come again." Jeff waved at the Mr. Saturn, but after he left, he grumbled about the price of the badges. He really hoped that the badges would prove their worth.

After leaving the item shop, he crossed the valley and headed to the arms depot. Upon entering the arms depot, the Mr. Saturn arms dealer greeted Jeff. Jeff greeted him back and Jeff then asked, "Are they all ready?"

"Affirmative," the Mr. Saturn replied. "Everything is set and ready to go." He then handed Jeff six Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets. Jeff stored them in a large bag.

"What about EVE?" Jeff asked.

"We have salvaged the pieces of EVE," the Mr. Saturn replied. "EVE will be loaded onto the Sky Runner II if you wish. _Boing_."

"Thank you," Jeff said, "but I'll want EVE taken to the lab. I'm going to finish her modifications there."

"As you wish. _Zing_," the Mr. Saturn replied.

"Oh, one more thing," Jeff added. "I'll need a few regular Multi Bottle Rockets as well."

"You're in luck," the Mr. Saturn said, beginning his sales pitch. "We have a buy one, get one free deal today. _Zoing_. With the best prices around, you'll find everything your heart can desire here. _Zong_."

Jeff gave a friendly chuckle at the Mr. Saturn's sales pitch. He checked the prices of the Multi Bottle Rockets and found that indeed, they really were not all that expensive, relatively speaking. They were one thousand dollars, each. Jeff decided to get six of them since he would only have to pay for three of the rockets. In order to get a little extra cash, Jeff also sold his Coin of Silence and his four Double Burgers and two Protein Drinks. He could buy some of the Mr. Saturns' famed Piggy Jelly for a fraction of the price. Once the transaction was made, Jeff thanked the Mr. Saturn arms dealer and he proceeded to leave the weapons depot and headed over to the food shop, where he went in and bought three Jars of Piggy Jelly. He knew that the Piggy Jelly would allow him to restore health without having to waste a Brain Food Dinner or rely on Ness or Poo to heal him. He knew that their talents would be needed in dealing with whatever enemies were present on Mount Itoi. Once he was finished, he proceeded to make his way to his lab.

When he arrived at his lab, he saw that EVE had already been delivered to him. This was perfect. He went inside his lab, which was still very neat and organized, and got out the still unfinished PSI Disruptor. Jeff quickly made the last finishing touches to the PSI Disruptor and within a half hour, Jeff was finished. Now came the more time-consuming chore, repairing and upgrading EVE. Fortunately, Jeff had all the tools that he needed right at his disposal. When EVE was rebuilt, she would not be an EVE 2.0; she would be an EVE 1,000,000.

Jeff worked until it was around one in the morning repairing and upgrading EVE. He was thankful that the Mr. Saturns had actually begun work on EVE. They had replaced her normal steel armor with a much thinner metal alloy the Mr. Saturns created that was actually stronger than the best Earth steel. He kept EVE's dark red color scheme, though. Besides adding armor and upgrading EVE's reaction software and speed mechanisms, he did not do much to the base part of EVE besides repair her. Most of his upgrades were external. EVE was a tall robot so she towered over Jeff. As such, Jeff wanted to use everything at his disposal to make EVE a walking tank and much, much more. He first added heavy energy cannons to both of her arms. These were not as powerful as the energy cannons onboard the Sky Runner II, but they were still powerful enough to destroy a tank with a couple of hits. Next, he added twin rapid-fire anti-personnel guns to the cannons, so that EVE could help them mow down weaker enemies. But he was not finished yet.

Next, Jeff built a bazooka for EVE to use. This bazooka was too large for a normal human to carry, but for something of EVE's size and strength, it would not be easy. The bazooka could fire vehicle mounted anti-tank missiles like the old Hellfire missile. The difference was that the Hellfire missiles used by the Mr. Saturns were far more devastating in combat than the normal human variants. Jeff had a good feeling that they would be highly effective against Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors and heavier enemies such as the R series of robots, one of which had initially destroyed EVE during her first operational tour. But he was far from finished.

Next Jeff added a rocket pack with wings and twin missile launchers, a combination of the jetpack from General Hawk in the G.I. Joe cartoon and Metal Head's missile pack from the same show. The pack had multiple missiles housed inside the pack as well, increasing her arsenal, as well as missiles on each wing of the jetpack. He also built some mini-missile launchers for each of her legs so that she could take out even more enemies. Like the jetpack, these missile launchers for her legs also contained reloads as well. Jeff smiled when he fitted them to EVE's body. The launchers could also swivel so they could target both ground bound and aerial enemies as well. By the time that Jeff was finished, there would be countries that would not have the arsenal that EVE possessed. But he was not finished yet, for all the weaponry in the world would do little good if EVE could be taken out by a peashooter.

Finally, Jeff added a shield generator to EVE that used a regenerative shield system. This would augment her armor and allow her to withstand repeated punishing blows from even the strongest of enemies. She could withstand repeated shots from her own weapons, even the Saturn Hellfire missiles, of which Jeff provided two clips of four. In addition to this, he installed an auto-repair system on EVE as well so that if she did suffer any damage, it could be repaired. Once Jeff had finished working on EVE, he put her through a battery of tests to make sure that she functioned properly. When the tests were finished, and EVE had passed, Jeff went up to her and asked, "Who are you?"

"I am EVE," a feminine robotic voice answered. "My original programming was to protect and serve Ninten. Since Ninten is dead, though, my new program is to protect you and the rest of the human race against the Starmen."

Jeff was satisfied with her answer. Still, he did not view EVE as a slave, but a comrade. "We are going to storm Mount Itoi and go against the very heart of the PSI Alien force on Earth, do you understand?"

"Affirmative," EVE answered in reply.

"Do you accept this mission?"

"Affirmative."

Jeff smiled kindly. "For now, just rest and do some routine self-diagnostics. We'll begin the mission tomorrow."

"I understand, Jeffery Andonuts," EVE responded. Jeff then went to one of the benches and proceeded to sleep for the remainder of the night.

At eight o'clock the next morning, Jeff shot out of bed when EVE proclaimed, "It is time to awaken, Jeffery Andonuts."

"I'm up," Jeff said as he shot off of the bench. Jeff then proceeded to go through the standard morning routine of eating breakfast, brushing his teeth and showering. Once he was finished, he gathered all of his weapons and belongings. EVE then melded her weapons and armaments to her body and proceeded to follow Jeff out of the lab.

Over at the Sky Runner II, Ness, Paula, and Poo had gathered by the ship, waiting for Jeff to arrive. They had been waiting for around fifteen minutes when Jeff came up to them, being followed by a massive dark red but not quite maroon robot that towered over him, bristling with cannons and missile launchers that also had a bazooka slung over its shoulder. The eyes of the party went wide at the sight of the large robot, which was easily more than twice the height of Poo. Suddenly, a flash of realization hit them.

"Is that EVE?" Ness asked, his eyes still showing surprise.

"It most certainly is," Jeff proclaimed proudly. "New and improved, as you can see. She has weapons up the wazoo and a shield generator to boot. She's EVE two-point-oh!"

"You are identified as Ness," EVE said in her mechanical voice. "I am programmed to serve and protect you and the rest of humanity. Will you accept my service?"

Ness was hesitant at first. He did not want to treat EVE like a mindless, soulless drone, on the chance that she was more. Still, EVE was asking to serve him, so in the end, he nodded. "Yes, EVE. I will accept your service."

"What are your orders?"

Ness did not want to treat her like a mindless drone, so he simply said, "Help us defeat the PSI Aliens and Giygas."

"Understood," EVE replied.

Ness and the others then boarded the Sky Runner II, followed closely behind by EVE. Once onboard, the group took their usual stations with Jeff being the pilot, Ness the copilot, Paula and Poo manning the weapons consoles, and finally EVE manning the rear console and status monitor. Before taking off, though, Jeff went back into the cargo bay to make sure that everything he had ordered had been loaded. Indeed, the Mr. Saturns had loaded everything he had wanted. Once he rejoined the others in the cockpit, the Sky Runner II lifted off and rocketed away from Saturn Valley and headed over towards Mount Itoi.

The trip over to Mount Itoi took only about an hour and a half or so. Jeff flew at a high speed so that they would not give the enemy time to react to their arrival. Once the mountain was within view, Jeff checked his sensors. Indeed, there were numerous enemies present around the mountain. Eight Fighter UFOs surrounded the mountain, protecting it from all incoming enemies. Fortunately, for Jeff, the Sky Runner II was once again fully loaded with air-to-air missiles. Jeff looked back at EVE and commanded, "Raise shields. We're about to go into the fire."

"Understood, sir," EVE replied as she pressed the green button on her console that activated the shields. He then proceeded to unlock the missile safeties and activated the targeting sensors of the Sky Runner II. He locked onto the eight Fighter UFOs and when the tones on each of them were solid, he unleashed eight missiles from the internal weapons bay. The missiles streaked from the weapons bay and raced after the Fighter UFOs, smoke trailing the missiles indicating their flight path. The Fighter UFOs had not realized that they were under attack until it was too late. The ships tried to perform evasive maneuvers, but were unable to evade the missiles. Two Fighter UFOs even crashed into each other and took themselves out of the picture. The missiles that had locked onto them merely continued to travel until they struck the side of the mountain off in the distance. Had Jeff been able to see the result, he would have seen the missiles strike among a group of eight Elite Mooks, practically disintegrating them, and inflict damage to the mountain base itself, blowing a chunk of wall out of the base, which resulted in an explosion that destroyed a Colin robot inside the base.

Back onboard the Sky Runner II, Jeff checked his sensors one more time and he saw several robots of the R series, as well as two Madnug giant mechs, approaching. Jeff decided to target the Madnugs first, unleashing a hail of rockets against them. The heavy explosive rockets were capable of taking out tanks in single hits. While the armor of Madnugs was stronger than the armor of a tank, it was still not impervious to the rockets. Not only that, but the high speed and maneuverability of the Sky Runner II made it almost impossible for the Madnugs to get an accurate bead on the flying saucer. Jeff did not have that problem, though. The volley of five rockets struck the first Madnug and blew off its legs and head. The headless and legless robot fell over backwards, accidentally crushing an R7038XX in the process. When the R7038XX exploded, so did the rest of the Madnug. As for the second Madnug, another volley of five rockets was more than sufficient to destroy it. This time, though, Jeff just fired all of the rockets at the chest, since it seemed as if when the chest was destroyed, the robot automatically exploded, and this Madnug was no exception. The Madnug's explosion also flattened some R7038XXs and an R7039 as well.

Jeff did not stop there, though. In order to ensure that the Sky Runner II would survive during the time they were inside Mount Itoi, Ness and the others had to make sure that all of the other robots were destroyed as well. Jeff found a group of R7039s and opened fire on the purple robots with a single rocket each. Five rockets were fired, and five robots were reduced to scrap, plumes of fire and debris erupting from where the robots had once been. Jeff checked his sensors once more and he soon saw another group of robots on the other side of the mountain. Using the Sky Runner II's incredible speed, he circled around the mountain and quickly got a bead on the robots. He then expended the rest of his rockets destroying the final group of robots. Once the final group of robots went up, all that was left was for him to clear the entrance to the mountain base.

Jeff spotted groups of Starmen and other alien monsters near the base of the mountain. However, the Sky Runner II's firepower was quite capable of taking down all of the monsters that had been assembled. Jeff looked back at Paula and called out, "Okay Paula, light 'em up!"

Paula immediately pushed the firing studs on their sticks and razed the group of Starmen near the entrance of the base with energy fire. Ness added the weight of the GAU-8 Avenger cannons as well. Starmen, Mooks, and robotic suits of armor were each blown apart or vaporized by the intense volume of fire unleashed against them. The Starmen were seemingly helpless to stop the Sky Runner II. The only hope would be that it ran out of power before it destroyed the mountain.

On the peaks of Mount Itoi, Giygas listened to the psychic screams of the Starmen and Mooks at the base of the mountain as they were completely obliterated by the Sky Runner II while he had been trying to meditate and focus on the upcoming battle. Giygas growled. The cries of the Starmen and the others were distracting him from focusing his attention on finding the Chosen Four. Still, it was the warning that he had been waiting for. The Chosen Four had arrived. He would have to make sure that their trip through Mount Itoi was short and fatal. He then psychically called to everyone inside the base, _The enemy has arrived. Get to your stations now and meet them with maximum force. Do not let them get past you and get to the mountain. You must stop them at all costs_.

A chorus of, _Yes, Master Giygas_, affirmations echoed throughout his mind. They had heard him. He quickly extended his psychic senses once again and saw that the Sky Runner II was raking the mountain with energy fire and anti-tank shells from its GAU-8 Avenger cannons. While he knew that they did not have the firepower to outright destroy the mountain, they could inflict significant damage to the base, itself. He witnessed a sextet of Fighter UFO reinforcements get taken out by the remaining missiles of the Sky Runner II. Things were not looking all that great for the forces of Mount Itoi at the moment. Still, Giygas was not concerned, though that flying saucer was getting annoying. As such, he told the Starmen of Mount Itoi, _That flying saucer is getting annoying. Shoot it down, now_! He hoped that that would get through to them.

Indeed, his message rang through loud and clear. A Starman Deluxe immediately teleported outside of the base and scanned the surroundings for the Sky Runner II. He quickly found the Sky Runner II coming in for what he sensed to be a final pass in order to disable the defenses of the Sky Runner II. Upon sighting the Sky Runner II, he powered a blast of PSI Thunder and unleashed it upon the flying saucer. Lightning leap out from his tentacle-like arms and immediately streaked towards the Sky Runner II. The lightning moved at nearly the speed of light and was unable to be dodged. The lightning struck the Sky Runner II and electricity arced all around its hull. Electrical systems shorted out and sparks erupted from various parts of the saucer. Smoke began to rise from the craft as it began to fall. The Starman Deluxe smiled. The ship was going down.

Onboard the Sky Runner II, the consoles sparked as the lightning bolt struck the ship, instantly collapsing its shields and disabling all of the systems on the vessel. "We've lost power entirely! I have no control over anything," Jeff alerted the rest of the occupants of the stricken Sky Runner II.

"Restart the ship!" Ness cried out, hoping that the ship could still be cold-started.

Jeff tried to get the ship to restart so he could maintain his loft, but the ship would not restart. "All the controls are dead," Jeff called out. "I can't restart this thing. We're nothing but a falling hunk of metal." He looked back to the others and said, "Hold on everyone! We're going in!"

The Sky Runner II fell from the sky and towards the base of the mountain. The Starman Deluxe that had felled the Sky Runner II watched as the ship, now smoking, fell out of the sky and crashed into the ground. Upon impacting the ground, a cloud of dirt was thrown up into the air. The Starman Deluxe was quick to note, though, that the ship had not exploded upon impact, and the ship seemed to be relatively intact as it skidded along the ground. The Starman Deluxe frowned. He would have to exert more energy in finishing off the ship.

Onboard the fallen Sky Runner II, Paula and Poo were thrown from their chairs after the craft struck the ground. Paula hit her elbow on the metallic floor with terrifying force and she heard a crack in her elbow. She had broken her arm. Despite the injury, she felt numb, as if everything that was going on around her was causing her to become numb to the pain of her broken elbow. Poo hit his head on the floor and was dazed but otherwise okay, for now.

Outside, the Sky Runner II continued to skid along the ground for a bit before coming to a rest near the base of the mountain. The Sky Runner II's outer hull looked to have suffered only moderate damage, but the ship's systems were completely fried. There was no way the Sky Runner II was going to fly again. Inside the ship, Ness, who had not suffered any injuries during the crash, used Lifeup Beta on Paula, to heal her broken arm, and Poo, to heal him of his head injury. Once that was finished he told the others, "Well, this is it. We'll have to storm this mountain again from the bottom up."

The others nodded grimly while EVE remained silent. As one, the group then went back to the main cabin and gathered their backpacks and weapons and armed themselves for the battles ahead. After that, they went to the main cargo bay and cracked open the crates. Inside the crates were the Multi Bottle Rockets and Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets that Jeff had bought. In addition to those weapons, there were ammunition belts with holders for Super Bombs. Four such belts were present here. Ness and the others took a belt and immediately strapped it on over themselves. Each belt had four Super Bombs strapped on it. The group then picked up all of the other weapons that they could carry while maintaining their mobility. Once they were fully equipped, the group proceeded to exit the Sky Runner II by blowing a hole in the side of the hull and jumping down, since the boarding hatch had been damaged by the crash. Ness, being the telekinetic, was the first to jump. Second came Paula, who Ness eased down onto the ground. Third came Jeff, who Ness also assisted in the landing. Poo came fourth, who landed softly on his feet without any need for assistance. Finally, EVE jumped down, her jetpack activating to slow her fall so that she landed softly.

The group looked forward and saw the cave entrance to the base. As they stepped forward, the Starman Deluxe that had shot them down stood before them, powering a PSI Starstorm attack. Wanting to deal with this enemy quickly, Jeff drew out a Multi Bottle Rocket and fired it at the Starman Deluxe. The rocket streaked towards the Starman Deluxe and the Starman did not have time to raise a normal shield over himself before the warheads from the rocket converged on him and exploded. The warheads blew apart the Starman Deluxe, though his death was lost in the cloud of smoke and dust generated by the explosions. When the dust cleared, though, there was no trace left of the Starman Deluxe, the first casualty of the infiltration of Mount Itoi, itself. After the death of the Starman Deluxe, the Chosen Four and EVE continued past the hole in the ground that used to be where the Starman Deluxe had been standing and entered the caves of Mount Itoi.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24:

Upon entering the caves of Mount Itoi, the Chosen Four encountered four Starman Supers in a narrow passageway that led into the mountain base, itself. The Starman Supers were standing guard over the entrance to the base noticed the five intruders and quickly turned to face them. "The psychic humans!" one of the Starman Supers cried out as he prepared to launch a psychic attack. However, EVE quickly squashed his plans with a well-placed shot from one of her energy cannons. The scarlet pulse of energy quickly struck the Starman Super and vaporized him in one shot. The other Starman Supers quickly raised Shield Betas over themselves in order to protect themselves from the normal attacks of EVE. Unfortunately, this made them quite vulnerable to the psychic attacks of the three human psychics present. Poo quickly took advantage of this by targeting the Starman Supers. His eyes began to glow as Paula telepathically confused them so that they would not be able to raise a psychic counter shield over themselves. Poo powered a dozen blue orbs of energy and once they had formed, he unleashed them against the Starman Supers. The blue stars rocketed towards the Starman Supers and even though they realized that they were under attack, their senses were too clouded to be able to raise a proper defense. The stars fell among them and exploded in blue flashes of light. The Starman Supers were utterly annihilated by the assault, the stars gouging massive holes in the ground. Ness winced at the display. If Giygas and the Starmen did not know that they had entered the mountain before, they most certainly did now. After the battle, the party walked past the craters, being careful to not fall into one of them, and proceeded to a metal door not too far ahead.

When they reached the metal door, they walked towards it, but the door refused to open. There was a keypad next to the door, indicating that a combination was required in order to gain entrance into the base.

"So, anybody know the passcode?" Jeff asked wryly as he considered trying to gain access the honest way for a second.

"No, but I know of another way to get in," Ness replied with a smile.

Ness reached out with his telekinetic powers and pushed against the door. The door quickly dented and with a second telekinetic shove, it broke off of its hinges and flew through the entrance to the lab. A Mook was struck by the door as it flew off the hinges and his bones were shattered. The door proceeded to land on top of the alien, crushing him. The Chosen Four and EVE then stepped through the door and into the mountain base. A Starman Deluxe and four Elite Mooks were there to greet them. EVE quickly dealt with the Mooks with her rapid-fire anti-personnel energy cannons while Jeff launched a Multi Bottle Rocket at the Starman Deluxe. The rocket streaked towards the Starman and quickly separated as it closed in on the Starman Deluxe. The warheads then converged on the unfortunate alien and detonated as they struck the creature before he could deploy a shield of any kind. After the blast cloud cleared, there was nothing left of the Starman Deluxe except for smoke and ashes.

With the skirmish won, the group took a quick look around the Itoi base caves, if they could be called caves at all, anymore. The Four quickly realized just how much this mountain had changed in the decades since they had last come here. Instead of the narrow passageways that had littered the caves of Mount Itoi during their previous trek, now, the caves, themselves, seemed to be replaced by an internal factory and even hangar area. The grinding and banging of machinery and the groans of engines assaulted the ears of the humans as they surveyed the scene before them. There were a large number of elevators and escalators that led to the higher levels of the factory sector, as well as other lifts that allowed the workers to get to and from the various stations. Ness was surprised, and a little disheartened to see that some of the workers that were working on the ships and robots for the Starmen were human. He went over to Paula and asked, "Paula, could you scan the workers for me; particularly the humans. I want to know how many of them are actually loyal to Giygas and how many of them are merely slave labor."

Paula nodded and she then turned to focus on the humans. Her eyes glowed as she scanned each and every one of their minds. She did not look for any personal information, though, merely their allegiance and whether or not their beliefs were true. Some of their minds filled her with rage and horror and she recoiled for a second, shocked at the evil present in some of them. After a few seconds, she received her answer. She turned to Ness and the others and told them, "They're all working for Giygas willingly, though many are dissatisfied with the duties that they have been tasked with. And more than a few of them are so evil they would defy explanation."

"That's good enough for me," Poo said as he powered a Starstorm attack and unleashed it at the half-built robots, UFOs, and other craft that were rolling along the assembly lines. The blue stars from Poo's Starstorm barrage vaporized the unfinished UFOs, robot legions, and other assembly machines in little more than single hits. Explosions lit up the lower level of the factory, flinging about bodies of workers and robots. Security officers came down to the lower level by lift and when they emerged from the lift, they opened fire on the Chosen Four and EVE. Ness raised a Shield Sigma in order to protect everyone from sustaining needless injury, though the psychic durability of himself, Paula, and Poo would likely allow them to survive several hits before going down. Jeff, being a normal, though, would have suffered from the volley of bullets and green energy bolts had Ness not raised the shield in order to protect them.

EVE then stepped out in front of the children and rattled off some energy bolts towards the security officers and servants of Giygas, the traitorous humans among them. Each bolt of energy struck a security officer or servant and burned massive holes in their bodies. Some of the servants of Giygas were utterly vaporized by the fire that EVE had pumped into them. EVE then targeted the upper levels and lines that were producing Fighter UFOs and fired a volley of missiles from the missile launchers on her jetpack and on her legs. Missiles erupted from the launchers, quickly being replaced with more missiles, and streaked towards the machines. A series of explosions later, and the assembly lines in the factory were ruined beyond repair. Debris fell from the assembly lines and now littered the factory floor and the catwalks over the large baths that contained boiling liquids and molten metal that was undoubtedly supposed to go into building more robots. After the assembly lines and construction machines were sufficiently destroyed, Ness and the others took one of the functional lifts up to the next level so that they could advance into the upper parts of the caves and later reach the plateau of Mount Itoi.

On the peak of Mount Itoi, Giygas telepathically listened to the cries and screams of the human servants, Mooks, and even Starmen that were being slaughtered by the Chosen Four and a large, dark red robot. He had not recognized the robot initially, but he suspected that the robot was a rebuilt EVE, a robot that had helped Ninten and his friends on their journey up Mount Itoi on the way the first battle between them and Giygas. Initially, EVE had been destroyed by an R7038XX, but he strongly suspected that this time, EVE was a lot stronger and was now a threat to an R7038XX. In fact, he would not be surprised if EVE had the weaponry to destroy an R7039. Still, he knew what EVE was to the Chosen Four. She was support. There were a lot of enemies that were too strong for a Gaia Beam pistol to take out, so they would have been forced to use their psychic powers against the defenses of the mountain. As it was, though, with EVE, they would have a good amount of support and could conserve some psychic energy for the later battles, allowing them to not have to waste items early in the mission. Giygas then telepathically alerted the other Starmen on the mountain, _Ness and his friends have arrived. They are attacking and destroying the factory inside the mountain. It will not be long before they arrive to fight you. Deploy all defenses, at once_.

A chorus of telepathic affirmatives echoed in his mind. Giygas then sat back as he looked out over the crags of the peak at his ship. Soon, a sensation came into his mind and he sensed a familiar presence come up from behind him. He grinned and gave a little chuckle as he turned and said, "Mother." Standing before Giygas was the spirit of Maria. "Have you come to see the carnage?" Giygas asked jokingly.

Maria looked at him, her sadness at his chosen path written all over her face. "It's not too late for you, my son. You can still…"

"I am not your son!" Giygas snapped. "I am Giygas, the son of Goog and Kaiyg! I am a PSI Lord, not some human weakling."

Maria's expression then became stern. "Giygas, if you take this path, chances are that you will die."

Giygas paused for a moment, not sure how to respond to Maria's statement. He then threw his head back and laughed, half humorously, half maniacally. "I will die?" he cried out in question, "Me? You really have lost it Mother! There's nothing those children can do to me. The defenses that I have placed around the mountain will ensure that."

Maria then went up to Giygas and hugged him, which took him off guard. "My son, no matter what you do, I will always love you. But please, turn away from this path of darkness and evil," she pleaded. "If you don't you _will_ die."

Giygas could see the tears streaming down her cheeks. He suddenly wondered what Maria knew about Ness and the others that he did not. Yes they were stronger than before, and yes they had taken him off guard in the palace on the moon. But back then, he had used up a lot of psychic energy mock-fighting his father, and had not had it replenished by entering the Sanctuary, as he had with the others. Instead, when he had emerged from the Sanctuary, while he was stronger than he had been before, but he had not been fully restored in body, mind, and soul; unlike the other psychics, who had entered the Sanctuary, and not emerged from it not only stronger, but also fully restored in body, mind, and soul as well. It was different now. "If I take the path you wish for me, I'll die too," he countered.

Maria looked down at the ground and responded, "That's not yet guaranteed. You could still break the link between you and Your Darkness. Please. You don't have to do it alone. Let me help you. Together we…"

"No!" Giygas snapped, cutting off Maria. "You're lying. If I do that, I'll die!"

"That's not guaranteed!" Maria retorted as if she were a mother berating her own child. "And what happens if you fight Ness and the others and are killed in the battle? If you die a good person or having renounced your previous evil, you will be able to enter Heaven. If you die following your current path, you may, and likely will, end up going to Hell. And I don't have to tell you about the horrors of Hell."

Giygas merely smirked. "I won't lose, Mother. I won't have to worry about going to Heaven or Hell for a long time." He then walked away from Maria and floated over to his ship.

Maria looked out at her son floating over to his ship. She held back tears as she said, "You're wrong Giygas." She then disappeared from the mountain ledge, but did not stop watching her son, and praying that he would choose to turn back to the light, before doing so was also a death sentence.

Meanwhile, back inside the remnants of the factory, the Chosen Four were under massive attack from an army of Starman Warriors, Elite Mooks, various psychic robotic suits of armor, Ultimate Octobots, and some Squatter Demons, enemies that was merely a disembodied face with razor-sharp teeth whose bite could either poison or diamondize one of the Chosen Four. Paula was already suffering the effects of poison while Jeff was already diamondized. That left Ness and Poo at full health, but they were having trouble of their own. Even with EVE blasting away at the massive horde of enemies coming at them, they were outgunned and overmatched, and with Jeff diamondized, they did not have access to the effects of his Counter PSI Helmet, Shield Killer, or PSI Disruptor. Ness had already used PSI Healing to heal Jeff once, only for another one to diamondize him again. Ness knew that they would need to conserve their psychic energy so that they did not use up too many items replenishing their energy.

At this point in the battle, Paula had raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party and was using PSI Thunder to try to collapse the psychic counter shields of the Starman Warriors and Starman Deluxes so that Ness and Poo could use their PSI Rockin and PSI Starstorm attacks respectively. So far, Paula had managed to neutralize some of their shields, but they were still coming. Even worse was the fact that they were unleashing everything that they had against the heroes as well. Blasts of PSI Fire, PSI Freeze, and even PSI Starstorm barrages were raining down upon the heroes. Paula's psychic counter shield was reflecting the damage, which ended up killing many of the Mooks, the Squatter Demons, and Ultimate Octobots, but more enemies kept on coming, jumping over the holes in the floor produced by the reflected Starstorm blasts. Fortunately, the reflected Starstorm barrages eventually managed to collapse the counter shields of the Starman Warriors and the Starman Deluxes, allowing Ness and Poo to unleash blasts of PSI Rockin Gamma and Starstorm Omega upon the masses of enemies. Blue orbs of energy and a scarlet ball of psychic energy fell among the oncoming horde of enemies and proceeded to explode among them. About half of the enemy force was engulfed by Ness's blast of PSI Rockin, while the remaining half was obliterated by the rain of stars that were exploding in their midst. Bodies were flung in all directions as Starman Warriors, Starman Deluxes, Mooks, and pieces of metal from the psychic robotic armored suits flew in all directions. After Ness's globe of Rockin dissipated, the enemy party that had been engulfed was reduced to vapor. That only left a group of four Elite Mooks and a Starman Warrior.

Poo immediately drew out his Sword of Kings and his beam sword and ignited it. He also electrically charged his Sword of Kings and charged into the group of Elite Mooks and Starman Warriors. Poo quickly fell upon the enemies and hacked and slashed at them. Pieces of tentacles were flying and the loud alien squeals could be heard. After a few seconds, the battle was over, and Poo was the only one left standing, but not without injury. He had been cut by the Starman Warrior's beam sword, but he had already used Lifeup and the wound was already closing. All the while, Ness used his Refreshing Herb to cure Paula of her poisoning. After she was cured, she rushed over to the diamondized Jeff and gave him her Secret Herb. Jeff immediately returned to normal upon having the Secret Herb placed on his body. After Jeff was fully healed, the group went on and advanced towards the lift that would take them to the next level. They quickly boarded the lift and waited until the lift arrived at their desired destination, the third level of the factory. Once the lift had arrived, its doors slid open, allowing them to disembark.

Upon disembarking, the party was quickly met by another group of Elite Mooks. The Elite Mooks glared at Ness and Paula with their eerie eyes, managing to diamondize both of them. However, that was all they were able to accomplish before EVE and Jeff tore them to shreds with several volleys of energy fire. After the Mooks had been massacred, Poo went over to Ness and used PSI Healing Gamma to cure Ness of his diamondization. Afterwards, he then went over to Paula and cured her as well. Once the two were cured, the group surged on.

Along the catwalk, the group encountered a psychic robotic suit of armor. This one had feminine features and was purple, indicating that it was an Abigail. The Abigail opened fire with a blast of PSI Thunder on Ness, who merely smiled as the lightning bolt bounced off of him thanks to the Franklin Badge's ability to reflect lightning, and struck the Abigail. Lightning arced across the robot's body, but the robot was not defeated yet. The robot then powered a ball of flame in its right hand and unleashed said flame against the heroes. However, the Star Pendants worn by Ness, Paula, and Jeff, as well as the Diadem of Kings worn by Poo, protected them against the flames, so they only suffered minor burns, if that. It was nothing that a Lifeup Alpha would not cure. The return fire by Paula, however, was far more devastating against the Abigail. Paula fired a stream of PSI Fire Gamma directly at the robot. A cone of flame erupted from her hands and struck the robot, instantly melting it to slag. Once the robot was destroyed, the group crossed the catwalk to the next lift. There were only two other enemies, a Luke, a gray suit of armor with a spear, and a Kevin, a green suit of armor with a sword. Both enemies had been taken out with contemptuous ease. It seemed as if despite the so-called improvements made to the new robotic suits of armor, against the Chosen Four, these suits of armor were nothing more than cannon fodder.

When the group managed to get to the next lift, they called the lift. However, Paula went up to Ness and warned him, "There's someone on the lift."

"It's a Starman Deluxe," Poo said, identifying the enemy, "At least, it has the signature of a Starman Deluxe."

The others then took up positions to either side of the door and waited for the lift to arrive. Once it did so, they tensed for a moment, preparing to strike, for they knew that the Starman Deluxe was a formidable opponent. Once the door opened, the Starman Deluxe arrogantly sauntered out of the car and mockingly called, "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

Poo quickly went up from behind and stabbed the Starman Deluxe in the chest with his katana while simultaneously igniting his beam sword as well. Both swords pierced the unfortunate Starman's chest and emerged out the other side. In addition, Ness and Paula also launched an attack on the Starman Deluxe. Ness swung his bat at the head of the Starman Deluxe, a crack of bones echoing on the catwalk as a result. Paula also attacked by kicking the Starman Deluxe in the groin. Upon receiving the kick to the groin, the Starman Deluxe keeled over in pain, groaning in agony. Still, despite having been stabbed by two swords and being hit in the head with a baseball bat, the Starman Deluxe was still alive, and had it not been for the groin kick, he would have responded by unleashing a Starstorm barrage against the party. As it was, though, the pain the Starman Deluxe was suffering at the moment prevented him from being able to concentrate in order to launch a psychic attack. This left him open to being finished off by a sword swipe from Poo as he used his beam sword to decapitate the psychic alien. The head of the Starman Deluxe fell to the floor as the body collapsed onto the floor. After the Starman Deluxe had been dealt with, the group boarded the elevator and proceeded to take the lift up to the fourth and highest level of the factory. The group said nothing as they took a moment to catch their breath before reaching the final floor and likely entering combat once more. The elevator came to a stop on the fourth floor and the door opened for the five heroes. Once the door opened, the group exited the elevator and proceeded to make their way over to the stairwell that would take them out of the factory and put them onto the cliffs of Mount Itoi.

However, their trek to the stairwell was not without incident. Six more psychic suits of armor stood ready to engage them. Each of these was of a new design that they had not yet encountered. One was green, another yellow, another white, the next red, another brown, and finally, one that was black. The suits of armor that had masculine features had either a lance or a spear as their primary armaments as well as a shield. The feminine robots, however, had a staff as their close combat weapon. Each of the robots was also equipped with an array of psychic powers. The black robot, a robot with a feminine design, led the charge by firing bolts of PSI Thunder at Ness and Paula. While Ness was perfectly capable of resisting the lightning due to his Franklin Badge, Paula was in more trouble. Her trouble was alleviated as she raised a PSI Shield Omega over herself as well as the entire party. The black robot's lightning struck Ness's shield and was reflected back at it. The lightning struck the robot, causing electricity to arc all across the robot's body. However, the primary circuits were protected from power surges and the robot only suffered minimal damage. The lightning bolt that was aimed at Paula also reflected the lightning back to the robot, but that bolt, too, only inflicted minimal damage. The other robots soon joined in, adding a series of elemental PSI attacks to the mix. Each of these attacks was redirected back at the robots that fired the attacks. The robots soon were faced with their own PSI Freeze, PSI Fire, and PSI Thunder attacks coming back at them while not managing to collapse the PSI Shield Omega that Paula had raised. Due to the youth of the children that the robots were using for their psychic knowledge base, the power of the attacks was not all that great, which meant that it was up to Ness and the others to finish the robots off. Still, the robots were quite capable of putting up psychic shields, even though they would not be counter shields. Unfortunately, for the robots, the power of the shields that the robots erected was proportional to the power that the children possessed. As such, the Ness was able to overpower the robots' shields with a single blast of PSI Rockin. The blast of Rockin tore its way through the weak shields of the robots and utterly annihilated them. By the time the ball of Rockin dissipated, there was nothing left of the robots at all. The group then proceeded to make their way towards the stairwell that would take them out of the factory and put them on the cliffs of Mount Itoi.

Guarding the exit were two more psychic robotic suits of armor. Both of the suits were red, indicating that they were Meryls, which meant that the suits would likely be using PSI Fire. Learning from their previous battles against the robots, Ness and the others knew that the robots were strong against lightning-based attacks. As such, Poo decided to take care of these robots with a single barrage of Starstorm. A quartet of stars formed around him and he quickly unleashed them against the robots, two for each robot in case they had a psychic shield up. As it turned out, though, the additional stars were unnecessary. The Meryls did not have any shields up, so when the stars struck the robots, they were instantly annihilated. Only Poo's control over his powers prevented the stars from destroying the entire cave mouth and cutting off the Chosen Four from reaching the cliffs of Mount Itoi. Before proceeding up the cliffs, the four paused for a moment. Ness glanced over to Paula, who stepped out in front of them and extended her telepathic senses. Her eyes glowed as she telepathically surveyed the areas in front of them.

"What have we got?" Ness asked Paula, eager to know what they were going to be facing once they got back to the outdoors and into fresh air.

"A lot," Paula answered. "I've detected a large number of Greater and Elite Mooks, as well as more Starman Warriors and Starman Deluxes. There are other enemies as well, likely psychic suits of armor. There may also be some giant robots around there as well."

Ness nodded. He then turned back to the others and said, "Okay guys. This is the big push. Get ready."

The others nodded in affirmation. They knew what was ahead and that Giygas would hold nothing back from them. With that knowledge, the group proceeded to go to the door that would lead them to the cliffs of Mount Itoi. They looked over at the keypad and pushed the green button to open the door. The door slid back and the way to the cliffs of Mount Itoi was open. All that was left for the teens and EVE to do was walk on through.

The Chosen Four and EVE emerged onto the rocks and cliffs of Mount Itoi and were surprised to see no enemies coming to meet them upon their emergence. The teens, however, did not lower their guard. "Alert, sirs and madam," Eve alerted the teens. "My sensors are picking up numerous psychic, life, and other energy signals all throughout this region of Mount Itoi. Proceed with caution."

"We hear you," Jeff replied, his voice echoing the sentiment of the rest of the party. The party then walked forward towards the edge of the rock until they came upon the edge of the cliff. They then turned right and approached another ledge. As they were circling a large rock outcropping to see if there was something they could use to climb the rock, two Starman Warriors appeared out of nowhere and attacked the party, igniting their dual wielded beam swords. Green energy blades sprang forth as they came at the heroes. "Die humans!" the cried at the top of their lungs as they tried to bring their blades down upon Ness.

Ness, for his part, raised a Shield Sigma over the party, protecting them from the blades that the Starman Warriors used against them. He knew, though, that the shields were useless against psychic attacks and that it would not be long before the Starmen attacking them resorted to their psychic arsenal.

Ness's shield caught the twin blades of one of the Starman Warriors as the other attacked Poo. The shield over Poo's body also managed to catch the second Starman Warrior's attack. Poo quickly retaliated by drawing his Sword of Kings and his beam sword. He ignited his beam sword and a green blade of energy sprang forth, right into the gut of his attacker. Poo then channeled electricity from a weak PSI Thunder attack into his Sword of Kings to increase its cutting power and durability and proceeded to stab the Starman Warrior again, this time in the head. His blade went clean through the visor and out the other end. The Starman Warrior went limp, dropping his beam swords, which promptly deactivated upon leaving his grasp. Poo then withdrew his blades and let the dead Starman Warrior fall over to the ground. Poo then went over to check on Ness, who was holding his own against the Starman Warrior.

While Poo had been busy with his Starman Warrior, Ness was having issues of his own with his own Starman Warrior. His Starman Warrior kept slashing away at him, hoping to wear down his shield with every hit that managed to land. The Starman Warrior was skilled, for he managed to parry each and every swing that Ness made against him. Ness was glad that none of those parries led to his bat being cut in half by the energy blades wielded by the Starman Warrior. Ness strongly considered trying to use a psychic attack against the Starman Warrior. He knew that Rockin was out of the question, but he wondered if Paralysis, Hypnosis, or Flash would be effective. Still, he had already used a noticeable portion of his psychic energy, so the last thing he wanted to do was to waste some more on a useless attack. As such, he decided to engage the Starman Warrior the hard way. However, he did not do so alone. He had backup in the form of Paula and Jeff. Paula quickly came to his aid, firing a bolt of PSI Thunder at the Starman Warrior. The PSI Thunder was not all that strong, but damage was not the only thing that Paula was going for. She also wanted to collapse his psychic counter shield, which her bolt of PSI Thunder did admirably. This allowed them to use their psychic powers against the Starman Warrior. Ness quickly powered a blast of PSI Rockin and unleashed it upon the Starman. The scarlet ball of energy quickly impacted the Starman Warrior and detonated, engulfing him in a field of psychic energy. Jeff added a few shots from his Gaia Beam pistol to make sure that the Starman did not survive. After the field of energy dissipated, all traces of the Starman Warrior were gone.

After the battle, an annoyed, yet also relieved Paula went up to Ness and told him, "Next time you find a Starman Deluxe or a Starman Warrior, engage them from range. That's what the Super Bombs are for."

"I understand," Ness replied sheepishly.

"Well, well," Jeff whispered over to Poo, "looks like the newlyweds are having their first fight."

Poo smiled and nodded at the comment, but quickly tried to straighten his face as Paula soon appeared next to the two of them and asked, "What was that?" in a menacing tone.

Jeff, knowing that Paula must have heard what he said, tried to play dumb. "Uh, what was what?" he asked, trying to sound natural but being quite unconvincing in the process.

"What was that comment you whispered over to Poo?" Paula asked harshly. "I could have heard you said something about newlyweds."

Jeff and Poo knew that they were doomed. "We said no such thing," Jeff lied, trying not to make Paula even more upset, and failing miserably.

Ness, oblivious to Paula's mounting annoyance and anger, said, "Actually, I think you did say something like that. I think it was…"

"Shut up, Ness!" Poo blurted, covering his friend's mouth. This only brought the wrath of Paula down on him. She stormed up to him and seethed, "Let go of his mouth or I'll sew yours shut."

Poo immediately released Ness and went up to Paula and apologized to her, saying, "We're sorry Paula. We just thought that the way you admonished Ness about his handling of the Starman Warrior was funny, you being his, well, you know…"

"I know what?" Paula asked, her hands on her hips leaning in towards the older teen.

It was then that Ness came in as the voice of reason and said, "Okay everyone, let's just forget about this and proceed with our mission. We can't keep dallying here. Giygas will send his minions on us and soon we'll be facing an army of Starman Warriors and Deluxes."

The mention of potentially facing an army of Starmen ended the argument, or at the very least put it on hold, and the group soon looked for a rope so that they could gain access to the next ledge. While they did not find a rope, they did come upon what looked to be an antigravity lift. The four humans took the lift up to the next ledge while EVE flew up using her jetpack.

Upon reaching the next ledge, Ness and the others found no enemies present, but they did come upon another rock face. They soon looked for another lift to take them up the cliff. They found one on their right. They went over to the lift and they took it up to the next ledge, with EVE flying up to join them. On this ledge, at first there were no enemies to deal with, but that soon changed when a Starman Deluxe appeared in front of them, along with an R7038XX. The R7038XX took one look at the group and immediately extended both of its hands towards the heroes. EVE stood in front of the heroes and shielded the heroes from the ensuing attack with her body. While Paula and Poo dealt with the Starman Deluxe, EVE dealt with the R7038XX. The R7038XX, however was the first to strike as two green beams of energy emerged from the open spots on the palms of the robot's hands. Ness raised a shield over EVE to add to her own shields. The R7038XX's beams were able to breach Ness's shield due to the beams having shield penetrating properties, but even though EVE's own shields were weaker than Ness's, enough of the beams' power had been stopped that EVE's own shields managed to absorb the rest of the beams' energy.

Knowing that an exchange of beam weaponry would result in her defeat, just has her last battle had, EVE unslung her bazooka from her shoulders and took aim at the massive robot. EVE pulled the trigger of her bazooka and a Saturn Hellfire missile erupted from the weapon. The missile, which had the power to destroy a large building in a single blast, streaked towards the R7038XX and struck. Upon striking the mechanical monstrosity, it detonated, blowing apart the R7038XX, bringing a swift end to the battle. Debris from the destroyed R7038XX rained down upon the heroes. EVE did her best to shield the four from the falling debris, and managed to prevent them from suffering any harm, though a separated hand from R7038XX landed scant inches away from Ness and skidded to a halt on the ground. As for the Starman Deluxe, Paula and Poo had dealt with him using a pair of Super Bombs plus a blast of PSI Thunder from Poo. Once the battles were over, the team continued on their way.

The path up the rest of the cliff section of Mount Itoi was still quite perilous. A squadron of four Elite Mooks met the heroes on a small ledge and glared with their eerie eyes at the Chosen Four. EVE quickly stood in front of the heroes to intercept their gazes, but not before Ness was diamondized by the glare. EVE, however, did manage to protect the others from the glares, though. In addition, EVE was completely unaffected by the glares since EVE had no organic components. The Elite Mooks realized that they were in trouble when EVE leveled her cannons their way. Instead of turning tail and running in the opposite direction, though, they merely fired cones of PSI Fire at EVE, hoping to inflict some damage to the robot. EVE's shields managed to absorb the attacks, flaring with each impact, but suffering no real damage. EVE retaliated by opening fire with her antipersonnel cannons on the Mooks and proceeded to shred the Mooks with ease. They never stood a chance. Once the Mooks had been dealt with, Poo used PSI Healing on Ness and restored him to normal. Upon returning to normal, Ness thanked his friend. Poo gave a smile and said, "You're welcome." The group then continued to make their way up the mountain.

As they were walking up the mountain, they came upon the ruins of the cabin where they remembered a healer had offered his services and cabin as a rest stop for weary travelers up the mountain. "Looks like the healer's cabin is gone," Paula said with a note of sorrow.

Poo nodded. The group then said a silent prayer, hoping that the healer, or whoever had taken over his position, had evacuated the cabin before it had been destroyed. After the prayer, the quartet and EVE continued up the mountain. There was no sense in stopping to mourn the loss of a rest cabin. The group merely realized that the journey would be a bit more difficult. The group moved up the mountain and soon came along the short path that would lead them to the Mount Itoi Lake shed. They traveled the path, quickly dealing with the lone Elite Mook that was barring the way.

As the group entered the lake area, they were quickly met with two squadrons of eight psychic robotic suits of armor. The predominant colors of the robots were pink, gray, and orange, which meant that they were dealing with Madelines, Lukes, and Dylans respectively, with a yellow robot, Hannah, and brown robot, David, interspersed among the group. While the robots had access to powerful psychic attacks, Ness and the others did not want to risk engaging them at close range, so Poo went ahead and used PSI Starstorm on the robots. A dozen blue orbs surrounded him and he then unleashed them against the robots as they began to launch their PSI Fire, PSI Freeze, and PSI Thunder attacks on the heroes, hoping that their strength in numbers would be sufficient to take them down. Unfortunately, for the robots, EVE stepped in front of the heroes to intercept the attacks, each one splashing off of her shields harmlessly. Meanwhile, the stars rained down upon the robots, shattering them with single hits. The explosions generated by the stars flung the robots that were not annihilated by said explosions to the ground, and often either into a star directly, or into one of the explosions. The battle was over in a few seconds with all sixteen robots having been destroyed. The group then proceeded to head to the shore of the lake.

Meanwhile, Giygas was in a holo-conference with his father and younger brother. "What are you saying?" Giygas asked. "Are you telling me to return now? What about my work on the psychic robots?"

"That's not important anymore," Goog replied. "We have analyzed the powers of the three psychic humans, and the technology of their inventor friend, and have noticed a great potential danger should the four of them team up. We have decided to deal with the situation ourselves."

"Have you decided to destroy the Earth?" Giygas asked. "If it's Earth you want destroyed, I'll gladly do it. Tell me when and…"

"No," Giegue answered sadistically. "I still want to play with some of the humans, so we can't just blow apart the planet…yet." Giegue then gave a moan of pleasure as Miridhel entered the picture for an instant, giggling. Giygas noticed her and focused his gaze on her, causing her cease her giggling and to retreat from his sight. Giygas had never approved of Giegue's taking of concubines from conquered people and collaborators. Beyond the moral implications, which once had been a trait of his upbringing by Maria, he did not trust such people. Murderers, thieves, prostitutes, and drug dealers were always the first to join the PSI Lords and collaborate with them during an invasion. What would happen if another strong race came along and gave the PSI Lords trouble? There had been more than one collaborator that had belonged to races conquered by the PSI Lords that had decided to betray the PSI Lords and assist the Magic Lords in their wars against the PSI Lords in the past. Who's to say that another might not decide to collaborate with the humans should the humans gain an edge, especially given the fact that human technology was so primitive compared to the PSI Lords'.

"Then what are you planning?" Giygas asked.

"We're gonna flatten Mount Itoi," Giegue replied, "and the rest of North America as well, it seems. We're gonna deal with the Chosen Four right here and now."

The image of Giegue and Goog was replaced by the image of a large, round asteroid that looked to be the size of Earth's moon. Giygas was left agape.

"What?" Giygas said, stunned, as he gazed at the asteroid, if it could be called an asteroid. "That's a stellar body the size of Luna."

"Yes," Goog replied. "And we're going to use it to take care of the human resistance to our invasion once and for all."

"I still don't see why you need to do this," Giygas said. "That asteroid will destroy the Earth. You may as well let me do it. It'll save you the time, resources, and power."

"But it won't kill all of the humans at once," Giegue countered. "This'll just flatten a continent or two and spread dust and debris around the world. It'll just cause suffering for the survivors. Besides, we're already opening a warp gate to bring in the, _ahem_, asteroid. You may as well rejoin us, sit back, and enjoy the show."

Giygas did not like this. They were toying with the destruction of Earth. This sadism had been costly in the past, especially when dealing with the Magic Lords. That was why the Magic Lords were able to fight evenly with the PSI Lords. Giegue, and to a lesser extent, his own father too, was incompetent, doing everything based on whims like a small child, rather than taking things seriously and performing the most expedient action for solving a problem. Still, his father and brother had given him an order, and in the pecking order, he was the lowest of the three, so he had to follow their orders. He proceeded to telepathically command the occupants of Mount Itoi to prepare to evacuate the western hemisphere of the planet. Once that was done, Giygas said to his father and brother, "Very well. When will it arrive?"

"Look above you." Giegue replied. "It's already there." Giegue then closed the channel.

Giygas looked above and saw that a massive black asteroid the size of the Earth's moon had just appeared in the evening sky. Giygas decided to sit back and watch. He would not leave, or give the command for the other occupants of the base to leave, until the asteroid was about to hit and his life was in danger. And yet, despite everything that was going on, he still had a feeling that Giegue's current plan was going to fail. All Giygas could do was laugh.


	25. Chapter 25

Chapter 25

When Ness and the others entered the lakeshore, they were met by an ominous scene. At first glance, the lake looked normal, though there was no dock present as there had been the last time they had come. A dark shadow had covered the land and Poo could sense some strange energies emanating from above. Even Paula and Ness could sense the strange energies. However, it was Jeff who looked up into the sky first. Upon turning his gaze skyward his expression became one of absolute disbelief and horror. "Uh, guys," he stammered, turning to the others, his look of disbelief and terror not lessening at all, "look above you."

The others looked above and saw what had Jeff so worried. For in the sky was a second moon. This moon was different, though. It was gray, and it looked to be made of metal. Behind it was a shimmering window, which was slowly closing. If Jeff did not know better, he could have sworn that it was a Death Star from Star Wars. Perhaps it was, in a way, since the object seemed to be growing in size. It was headed straight for Earth. "That asteroid is going to strike the Earth!" Paula cried. "It'll be like another K-T event!"

"Worse," Jeff said in quiet horror. "That's a moon-sized body that's coming to hit the Earth, not just some asteroid. And if it's made of metal, then it's likely far denser that Luna. Paula, see if you can sense any lifeforms on that stellar body."

Paula slowly nodded and then focused on the moon and extended her telepathic senses. She scanned for people on the second moon, but could find nothing. She then turned to Jeff and told him, "I couldn't find anyone on that thing."

"Then it's likely just some rock or moon from some other planet that they've summoned to crash into Earth," Jeff concluded.

Jeff and Paula then slumped over. "Then what are we going to do?" Paula asked, knowing that there was little that any of them could do to destroy or divert it. It was so large and neither Ness nor Poo could erect a shield capable of repelling such a large object.

"I'm going to destroy it," Ness stated flatly. The others looked at him, their expressions showing their surprise and shock.

"You? Alone?" Poo asked, incredulous at what he had just heard. "No offense, but can you really do it?"

Ness nodded. "When I was attacked by Giygas on the moon, the evil he placed in my mind forced me to fight My Nightmare again. During the battle, I broke through my blocks and tapped into a reserve of psychic power that I did not know that I had. After I won, I felt new power coursing through me, as well as the shattering of my previous blocks and barriers. I can do this," he said confidently.

"Maybe," Jeff said hesitantly, "but there's still the issue of conservation of momentum. Even if you destroy that moon, the dust, particles, and larger pieces of debris will still be headed towards Earth. Even if the rocks are blown into relatively small pieces, they'll still cause an awful lot of damage to the planet."

"Not if I vaporize it," Ness countered.

"But what would a blast that is powerful enough to vaporize that thing do to the Earth in the process?" Paula asked. "Don't forget that that thing is getting closer."

"That's what you're for, Poo," Ness answered, turning to the older teen. "I want you to generate a shield and spread it out as far as you can, pushing as much energy into it as you can. I'll add my own as well. I want you to do the same thing, Paula," he told Paula, "just in case there's a psychic backlash. Also, make it a counter shield if at all possible. I want the debris to be headed back at the PSI Aliens if at all possible."

"Okay," Poo said with a wavering voice. Paula also gave a nod, indicating that she would give it a try as well.

Before Ness powered the attack, though, he told everyone, "Just so you know, I don't know if this will work. I mean, I can destroy it, but I don't know if I can destroy it in such a way that I'll keep the debris from striking the Earth, nor do I know if the shields will be able to expand far enough to protect the planet should I not be able to stop the debris, and even if they can, whether or not they'll hold against the massive energy that I'll be using."

"Don't worry about it," Paula and Poo told Ness supportively. "You can do it. We've got your back."

"Thanks guys," Ness replied, smiling.

Ness then focused on the other moon in the night sky, directly opposite the normal moon. The black moon loomed larger and larger as it approached. Ness held up his right hand and cried, "PSI Rockin Omega!" A ball of scarlet psychic energy formed in his hand. The ball grew in size until it was the size of a grapefruit. Ness kept adding energy to the ball of Rockin, but the ball did not grow in size. He merely condensed the energy until he could push no more energy into his attack. After a few seconds, it was at full power. He then targeted the large gray stellar body in the sky and unleashed his attack. As he unleashed his attack, he, Paula, and Poo raised their shields over the Earth and they, along with Jeff, prayed for the shield to withstand what was about to come and save the Earth from harm. The scarlet ball of psychic streaked towards the black object in the sky and disappeared once it was too small to be noticed. A second or so later, the effects of the ball of Rockin were seen as the large black object was vaporized by the large explosion of scarlet psychic energy. The energy, as well as the debris from the explosion, shot out in all directions.

Upon the stellar body's destruction, Paula and Poo raised a psychic counter shield and normal counter shield in order to keep the energy and debris from spreading back to Earth and inflicting massive damage to the planet. Even though there was no physically possible way for their shields to be able to expand wide enough to protect the planet, or be strong enough to reflect all of the energy and debris away from the Earth even if they did; somehow, miraculously, the shields had held and they were able to reflect all of the energy and debris away from the Earth, and back towards the PSI Alien fleet. Even the moon was unaffected by the blast. Everything was fine. It was as if the gray metal moon had never appeared in the sky to begin with.

Ness and the others stared into the sky in amazement at what had just happened, not at the destruction of the metal moon, but that there was no damage done to the Earth whatsoever as a result. A look of relief crossed Ness's face and then, he promptly fell to his knees. Before he could fall to the ground, Poo appeared before him and caught him, easing him down to the ground. Paula also rushed over to him and cried, "Ness! Ness! Speak to me! Are you alright?"

"Yeah," Ness said weakly. "I'm fine. Just tired. That took a lot," he said, referring to the use of his PSI Rockin Omega along with the raising of the shield. Ness weakly took out one of his Special Cakes and ate it. Immediately upon eating the cake, he felt refreshed and ready to go. He sprang up, much to the relief of his friends, and continued on his way towards the Mount Itoi Peak, the other teens and EVE following closely after him.

On the peaks of Mount Itoi, near the chasm that his ship was parked in, Giygas stood staring at the sky, his eyes wide in shock. Such an occurrence would not have been surprising if he had been the one to destroy the metallic moon, but this was not his doing. What was more shocking, though, was the fact that the Earth had not been damaged in the explosion. Heck, even Luna was undamaged, which shocked Giygas to no end. He soon felt a familiar presence appear behind him and it all began to make sense. "Mother," he said, turning back to see Maria standing behind him once again. "I should have guessed that you would not let your people be destroyed, regardless of how many rules you just broke."

"I broke no rules, my son," Maria told him, her soft voice full of kindness. "All I did was prevent the blast from causing damage to the Earth, and only because I was given permission to by God, and only in the form of enhancing their shields and allowing a miracle to happen."

"So God's letting you try to convince me to get myself killed again," Giygas laughed.

"Giygas," Maria said sadly. "My son, if you keep going down this path…you are likely going to die. The Chosen Four are not weak, as that display of power demonstrated."

Giygas's eyes went wide. "You're telling me that _they_ did that?"

Maria nodded. "Yes. Ness destroyed that moon, ruining your brother's plans, for now." She then hugged Giygas. "Please, my son. Don't do this. It's not too late to break the link. Just go inside your own mind and destroy the link in your Magicant. You had a tremendous opportunity to do so when you unlocked the eighth Sanctuary. I can help you can go back, go inside your mind and…"

"No!" Giygas snapped. "This is my path, Mother! I don't want your advice anymore. I don't want you! I don't need you! Get out of my life!" he roared. He then fired a blast of PSI Special Omega at Maria, knowing that it would not do anything to her, but hoping that it would at least hurt her, if not physically, then mentally and spiritually. As expected, once the green globe of energy dissipated, Maria emerged from the field completely unharmed. She looked at her son and sighed.

"If this is your wish, I will abide by it." She then focused on him sternly and added, "But know this, my son. What you do here will decide your eternal fate. If you choose evil, regardless of the outcome here, you will be called to task one day. I pray every single day that you will be shown mercy, and change for the better." With that, Maria disappeared from his sight. Giygas then said to the air, "I don't need your prayers, woman." He then went back to preparing for his upcoming battle against the Chosen Four.

Back down the mountain, Ness and the others were making their way from the Mount Itoi lake to the Mount Itoi peak. Just as before, instead of ropes leading up the rock face, there were lifts that would take them up. Not only that, there were countless enemies on the mountain as well, in addition to several Fighter UFOs flying holding pattern around the peaks of Mount Itoi. Before continuing, Ness and the others quickly outlined their plan for attempting the scaling of the mountain's peaks.

"Okay, what have we got?" Ness asked Paula.

"We've got a ton of Starman Deluxes and Starman Warriors," Paula stated. They're assisted by squadrons of psychic robotic armored suits, Nuclear Reactor Robots, and Ultimate Octobots. This part of the quest will be the most difficult." That went without saying.

"So, what's our plan?" Poo asked.

"We go up and pick our targets," Ness responded. "Jeff, you deal with the Starman Deluxes and the Starman Warriors."

"Right," Jeff said. He could see where Ness was coming from with this. Jeff's Multi Bottle Rockets were powerful explosives that could kill Starman Deluxes and Warriors in single hits as long as they did not have a shield or counter shield raised at the time.

"Paula, you and I will be taking on the robots," Ness proposed. Paula had no problem with that.

"Got it," Paula affirmed.

"Poo, you'll be swing. You'll assist either party as the mission requires."

"Understood," Poo said.

"Also, you and I will be the team healers depending on the situation." Poo nodded.

"EVE, you will be watching our backs. Make sure that no Fighter UFOs, Assault UFOs or other enemies manage to attack us from behind," Ness ordered.

"Understood, sir," EVE replied.

After the plans were made, the group proceeded to head up the mountain. Along the first ledge, they encountered a lone Nuclear Reactor Robot. Jeff and EVE fired several energy blasts at the robot and blew several holes into the robot. Once fatal damage was inflicted to the robot, it exploded, but the Chosen Four and EVE were well away from the blast zone, and they remained uninjured. The group then went to search for the lift that would take them to the next ledge. They soon found the lift and used it to ascend to the higher ledge

On the next ledge there were no enemies on the ground, but three Fighter UFOs appeared in the air next to the group and were beginning to deploy their energy cannons. EVE would have none of that, though, and she immediately locked onto the Fighter UFOs with her weapons systems. EVE fired a volley of three missiles at the Fighter UFOs. The three missiles homed in on the UFOs and rocketed after them. When they struck the UFOs, they detonated, blowing the UFOs apart. Debris rained down upon the sides of the mountain as the group went up the next lift that took them to the next ledge.

The next ledge was just a small rock outcropping that was barely large enough to support the Chosen Four and EVE. On the ledge was a Starman Warrior. Not wanting to engage the Starman Warrior in a battle, Jeff drew out a Multi Bottle Rocket and launched it at the Starman Warrior. The warheads split apart as they neared the Starman, who did not notice the warheads approaching until they were almost on him, and converged on the Starman. The warheads struck the Starman Warrior and exploded. The physical defenses of the Starman Warrior were insufficient to protect him from the rockets and the explosions brought an end to the Starman. Once the smoke cleared, the burned body of the Starman Warrior lay on the ground, seemingly dead. Before the group moved on, Poo drew his sword and stabbed the Starman Warrior in the head, ensuring that he was no more. The group then went to the next lift and rode it to the next ledge.

On the next ledge, the party was confronted with four Ultimate Octobots, round robots with four tentacle-like legs. The primary weapons of Ultimate Octobots were a laser cannon that was fired from the face of the robot, and its tentacle-like legs that could wrap up an opponent and slam them into the ground. Jeff quickly pulled a couple of Super Bombs from his ammunition belt and tossed them at the Octobots while Ness raised a Shield Sigma over the party. The bombs rolled over to the Octobots as they fired a volley of green energy pulses. The pulses splashed harmlessly against the shield that Ness had raised over the party. Nevertheless, the Octobots continued to fire on the teens. A couple of seconds later, the Super Bombs exploded, engulfing the Ultimate Octobots in a sphere of flame. The resulting explosions were sufficient to destroy the Ultimate Octobots, reducing them to scrap metal.

Once the battle was over, Ness and the others followed the path on the ledge up a small incline that took them to another ledge. On this ledge, the teens faced off against a quartet of Starman Deluxes. This was problematic since, upon scanning the enemies, they had found that the Starman Deluxes had already raised Shield Betas over the bodies, and were powering a PSI Starstorm attack. It was evident that they had been studying the battle tactics of the Chosen Four and came prepared. Paula quickly powered a PSI Shield Omega over the party while Ness and waited in order to support the others. Jeff drew out his Shield Killer and fired a beam of energy at one of the Starman Deluxes, stripping him of his shield. Meanwhile, Poo unleashed a stream of PSI Thunder Omega against the Starman Deluxes. Lightning leapt from his fingertips and streaked towards the Starmen. The bolts of lightning struck the Starman Deluxes and electricity arced across their bodies. The Starmen felt parts of their bodies go numb and they were unable to move. While the bolts of lightning inflicted damage to the Starman Deluxes, they did not kill them. However, they did accomplish their goal of collapsing the shields of the Starmen. The Starman Deluxes proceeded to unleash their PSI Starstorm barrages against the heroes before they had realized that Paula had raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party. The stars rained down upon the Chosen Four and splashed against the shields of the Chosen Four, causing them to flare, before being reflected back to the Starman Deluxes. The stars fell among the Starman Deluxes and exploded, engulfing them in green fields of energy, annihilating them. Once the barrage had ended, the Starman Deluxes were no more. After the battle had ended, the party continued to follow the path along the ledge.

As they followed the path along the ledge, they were met by no less than sixteen psychic robotic armored suits. All known varieties of armored suit were present in this fight, hoping that numbers would allow them to defeat the Chosen Four. Ness, however, had other ideas. He casually pulled off two Super Bombs from his ammunition belt and tossed the bombs over to the robots. The robotic suits of armor powered their psychic attacks but before they could unleash their assault on the psychic teens, the Super Bombs exploded, shattering the bodies of some of the robots, and sending others flying. EVE also joined in, firing a volley of missiles into the remaining robots, finishing off the remainder of the robots. After the battle had ended, the Chosen Four continued to follow the path until it led them to a lift. Guarding the lift was a single Starman Deluxe. He noticed the teens coming and fired a blast of PSI Thunder at them before they could react. Unfortunately, his target was the leader of the Four, Ness, who was wearing a Franklin Badge. The lightning bounced off of Ness, a metallic clang sounding forth as the lightning was reflected, and was redirected back to the Starman Deluxe. The bolt of lightning struck the Starman Deluxe and proceeded to electrocute him. Electricity sparked across his body, but he was not dead yet. Paula, however, quickly changed that by unleashing a blast of PSI Fire on the injured Starman Deluxe. The psychic fire quickly reduced the weakened Starman Deluxe to ashes, bringing a swift end to the battle. Without a word, the group boarded the lift and went up to the next ledge.

Upon emerging from the lift, the group turned to its left and followed the ledge with Ness leading the way, followed by Paula, then Jeff, next Poo, and finally EVE. As the ledge began to widen, they began to feel the ground shake rhythmically, as if something was walking towards them. Indeed, coming towards the group was another robot like the R7038XX. This one was purple, though, indicating that it was an R7039. The R7039 extended its hands towards the heroes and EVE and upon locking onto the heroes, two massive energy blasts erupted from its hands, one targeting the Chosen Four, the other targeting EVE. The one targeted at EVE struck EVE directly in the chest. EVE's shields flared as they strained to absorb and reflect the energy of the beam away from EVE. The beam did not stop as the strength of EVE's shields was beginning to wane. As for Ness and the Chosen Four, the beam struck among the heroes, generating a large explosion that hurled the Chosen Four through the air and to the ground. Each of the heroes landed several yards away from their initial positions, but aside from a few bumps and bruises, they suffered no real injury. As for EVE, the beam managed to cut off just as the shields failed and the energy beam was beginning to burn EVE's armor, leaving a white-hot circle on the armor on her chest that began to cool as the beam cut off. EVE's auto-repair systems began to cut in and repair the damage to her armor. The R7039, however, needed time to recharge before firing again. EVE took this opportunity to whip out her bazooka and target the R7039. Once she had leveled the weapon on the robot, she pulled the trigger and a Saturn Hellfire missile erupted from the bazooka and flew straight towards the robot. Upon striking the robot's chest, the missile detonated, blowing apart the robot. The robot's limbs and head flew off the R7039 and landed a dozen yards away. Debris rained down upon the heroes, but Ness had raised a Shield Sigma over the party, protecting them from the falling rain of superheated metal. Once the rain of metal had stopped, Ness lowered the shield. After the battle, the group moved forward and proceeded along the ledge.

As they followed the ledge, they encountered two more Starman Deluxes and two Starman Warriors. Paula quickly scanned them and upon completing her scan, she telepathically alerted the others, _They've raised PSI Shield Betas over themselves_.

Jeff then drew his last two Super Bombs from his ammunition belt and tossed them at the quartet of Starmen. Poo also tossed a Super Bomb from his belt over to add to Jeff's firepower. The Super Bombs landed directly among the party of Starmen, who turned to face the heroes after they heard the clatter of the bombs on the ground. They began to charge their signature psychic attacks, PSI Starstorm, when they saw out of the corner of their eyes that the teens had tossed a trio of Super Bombs towards them. The Super Bombs exploded and sent the Starman hurtling towards the ground, disrupting their concentration, causing the stars they had created to disappear. The Starman Deluxes landed on the ground, but were still alive, and attempting to get back up to power their attacks once more so they could unleash them on the heroes. Their suits were smoking and had suffered numerous breaches, but they were still alive. Jeff then drew his Gaia Beam pistol and took a shot at one of the Starman Warriors, who was too sluggish to respond. His beam caught the Starman Warrior directly in the visor and burned a hole through the Starman Warrior's head. The Starman Warrior fell to the ground, a smoking hole having been burned straight through his visor and head. Poo dealt with the other Starman Warrior by rushing in on the Starman and repeatedly stabbing the Starman in the head and chest, just to make sure that he would never rise again. Ness and Paula then went to deal with the Starman Deluxes, who had shown themselves to be less durable than the Starman Warriors. Upon reaching the Starman Deluxes, Ness and Paula repeatedly bashed them in the head with their bat and frying pan respectively. The two repeatedly struck the Starmen in the head to make sure that he was dead. Once the Starmen had stopped moving, they formed up with Jeff and Poo and proceeded to make their way to another lift that would take them up to another ledge. Before going up the lift, though, EVE called out to the others, "Halt, sirs and madam." The Chosen Four stopped in their tracks and looked back at EVE. EVE then leaned in closer to the others and whispered so that she was barely audible, "There is an ambush waiting for you on top of the next ledge. It consists of a Starman Deluxe and two Starman Warriors, a dozen Elite Mooks, along with one Hannah-class and one Kumatora-class suit of armor. With them is a giant robot similar to the R7039 class of robot, only colored midnight black. Allow me to handle the enemies on the ledge, sirs and madam."

The others considered what EVE's offer. They knew that they could handle a group of psychic powered suits of armor, a squadron of Elite Mooks, a Starman Deluxe and two Starman Warriors, along with what was likely the R7040, but they also knew that it would be costly in terms of psychic power, as well as Multi Bottle Rockets. The standard automatic defense that the Starmen had was a PSI Shield Beta, so that would make using psychic attacks against them hazardous to the user, unless they used PSI Thunder, and the Starman Deluxe and Starman Warriors were powerful psychics themselves, so they would be able to survive the PSI Thunder attacks and be able to counterattack. As it was, EVE's plan was likely the best chance of winning the fight against the horde of enemies on the ledge at the lowest cost to the teens. "Okay," Ness said, nodding towards EVE, authorizing her to go through with her plan. "Do it."

EVE nodded back and she went forth and activated her jetpack and prepared an ambush of her own. Ness then told the others, "Let's go guys. We have to cover EVE. It won't take long for them to respond and launch a counterattack of their own."

The others then boarded the lift as EVE rocketed up to the next ledge, unleashing a barrage of missiles as the opening move in the next battle. The missiles landed among the Starmen and exploded, sending them sprawling. EVE then sprayed energy fire at the Elite Mooks and armored suits with her anti-personnel energy cannons, as well as a few shots from her heavy energy cannons as well. Six Elite Mooks and the Hannah were immediately killed in the initial volley of energy fire. Once she had finished with the Elite Mooks and the armored suits, she focused her attention on the R7040 that was taking aim at her just as Ness and the others arrived to finish off the stunned Starman Deluxe and Starman Warriors with a single Super Bomb tossed by Paula.

While Ness and the others focused on finishing off the rest of the Starmen and Elite Mooks, EVE dealt with the R7040. The R7040 opened fire on EVE by unleashing a volley of missiles from a retractable missile launcher in the palm of its left hand. EVE defended herself by spraying energy fire at the missiles, managing to hit them and detonate the missiles. EVE then returned fire with her heavy energy cannons. As expected, though, her energy blasts only caused minor furrows on the armor of the massive robot. EVE then unslung her bazooka and took aim at the robot as it retracted its missile launcher and took aim at the massive robot. Once the bazooka was leveled on the robot, EVE fired. The missile erupted from the launcher and streaked towards R7040. The missile struck the robot and obliterated it. Metallic pieces of shrapnel rained down upon the ledge, though they did no damage to the heroes. After the R7040 was destroyed, the group headed towards the next lift but before riding it, Paula scanned the area to see if they were any enemies present. Upon sensing that it was secured, she turned to the others and said, "It's secure." With that, the group made their way to the lift and proceeded to ride it up to the next ledge.

The next ledge was quite narrow. It was barely able to fit one two of the teens walking abreast. Still, the group trudged on until they came to another lift. The teens did not seed to scan the next ledge, for they knew they were near the peak of Mount Itoi, and what the next ledge held. They took the lift up to the final ledge and there, they saw two familiar grave markers, one for George, the other for Maria. Upon seeing that the grave markers remained undisturbed, Paula said a silent prayer for both of them, as well as for Giygas, since she viewed that the fact that the grave markers meant that Giygas might still have some attachment in his heart to his adoptive mother, Maria.

Standing near the entrance to the cave was a man, but he did not seem to be an enemy, or a soldier. Paula tried to perform only the most cursory scan that she could, since she did not like invading the privacy of others when she used her powers, in order to find out this man's allegiance. She found that he was not an enemy, just an item seller. In essence, he was a pawnbroker. The group went up to the entrance and he called over to them in a suspicious voice, "Hey kids, over here."

The others went over to him and Poo asked, "What do you want?"

The man grinned and said, "I want to make your journey a little easier. I know you're about to go bustin' on Giygas's door. I'm here to give ya some items to make the battle go a little easier on ya. However, these items won't come cheap, just so ya know."

"What have you got?" Jeff asked, still suspicious of the man.

The man produced a large bag and proceeded to open it and put on display a whole host of healing items from Life Up Creams, to Cups of Lifenoodles, to Horns of Life. The group knew that these items would be very useful in helping them survive the fight against Giygas, but the item seller was very true to his word when he said that they would not come cheap. Still, the items that he was selling would be of tremendous value in the upcoming fight, so they decided to bite the bullet and buy some of the needed items. Paula, who did not have any revival items, bought a couple Cups of Lifenoodles for herself, though it cost her three thousand dollars for the two of them. Jeff also wanted to buy a Cup of Lifenoodles and maybe even a Life Up Cream or two, but they were too expensive and they could not afford them. As it was, the rest of the party had to make due with what they had. Once they were finished, they proceeded into the cave.

As the others proceeded to make their way into the cave, she telepathically scanned the area to see if Maria was watching, but upon finding no sign of her presence, she went along with the others, even though she knew that her not sensing Maria meant very little. The group came to the entrance to the cave. As per the normal routine now, Paula stepped forward and scanned the area for enemies. She could sense that enemies were present in an adjacent chamber, as well as the kidnapped children and some of their parents. She also sensed four Starman Deluxes and a dozen psychic robotic suits of armor, one for each kidnapped child of an old enough age to be useful for having their minds linked to the robots, and one extra Colin to make an even dozen. Upon sensing this, Paula cut off her senses and told the others, "We've found the kids. They're in an adjacent chamber. They're guarded by four Starman Deluxes and a dozen armored suits. As of yet, the Starman Deluxes have deployed PSI Shield Betas."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Ness said with deathly seriousness. "Let's get them out. You know the drill."

The others nodded and then proceeded to make their way into the cave. The inside of the cave was quite narrow, just as they had remembered, and still looked quite rocky. Inside the cave, they were quickly met by a yellow and a red robot, which the teens recognized as a Hannah and a Meryl respectively. EVE quickly dealt with the robots by firing a single blast from her two heavy energy cannons on each arm. Each shot practically disintegrated the two robots, leaving nothing but small piles of molten metal as a sign that the robots had ever existed. The teens soon came to a metal door on their left. Ness looked back to Paula, who nodded before he had even formed the question in his mind. With that, Paula joined him on one side of the door, while Jeff and Poo were on the other. Ness inspected the door and saw that it looked to be a reinforced blast door. Jeff took out an Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket and prepared to deploy it upon entering the room. He turned on his Counter PSI Helmet and activated its targeting system. It was his hope that the rocket would be able to destroy at least one of the Starman Deluxes while the others engaged the other Starman Deluxes. Poo quickly drew out two Super Bombs and handed them to Ness. Ness then attached them to the blast door. He ushered the others down the hall and once the others were safely away, he pushed the activation studs of the bombs, and quickly fled down the cave with the others, calling, "Fire in the hole!"

The bombs exploded and blew open the door. Fire leapt out from the blast and back into the cave. Ness raised a shield so that the firestorm would not injure the heroes. After the fire had died down a second or two later, Ness charged towards the hole in the wall along with the others and tossed a Super Bomb into the room along with Paula to begin the assault. The two Super Bombs exploded, engulfing the two Starman Deluxes in spheres of flame. Jeff quickly added a couple of pulses from his Gaia beam pistol to the two Starmen, just to make sure that they were felled. The rest of the group soon surged through. A cursory glance already showed the two Starman Deluxes suffering severe injuries from the Super Bombs and the shots from Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol, as well as a suit of armor that was lying on the ground with a piece of shrapnel from the blast door stuck in its chest. Jeff quickly fired off two more shots at the Starman Deluxes in order to take them down and keep them down. Paula and Poo quickly dealt with the remaining two Starman Deluxes while Ness, Jeff, and EVE concentrated on dealing with the suits of armor and saving the children.

EVE rattled off a series of energy blasts, blasting apart two robotic suits of armor, while Ness and Jeff dealt with another group of armored suits. Ness quickly powered a blast of PSI Rockin in his right hand and unleashed it against the robot forces. His ball of Rockin left his hand and fell among the robots, instantly disintegrating them. Jeff, meanwhile, had shot two robots in the head with his Gaia Beam pistol, felling each of them with single shots. Ness then looked to his side and saw several green capsules. Each of the capsules housed human children. Ness looked down the line and saw more children, including Kumatora. He also saw Flint, Hinawa, as well as Lucas and Claus inside capsules too. In addition, though, he noticed several weapons lying on a desk near the capsules. When Ness neared the console that likely controlled the release valve for the capsules, he felt a rush of air as an unknown enemy ignited a beam sword and tried to take off Ness's head. Turning around, he saw an Elf looking at him, grinning evilly. "So, it looks like I'll get my chance to off one of the Chosen Four after all," the Elf sneered.

Ness did not say a word, but merely grabbed his bat from over his shoulder and prepared to engage the High Star Elf scientist. The High Star Elf scientist quickly charged Ness and tried to bisect him with his beam sword. Ness swiftly dodged the blade and retaliated with a swing of his bat, which the High Star Elf managed to avoid. The two exchanged more blows and swipes but neither was able to gain an edge over the other. Eventually, Ness positioned himself so that his back was to the console that would release the children. The High Star Elf quickly neared Ness, along with some support from two extra black suits of armor that had lightning sparking from their hands. The High Star Elf, believing himself to have the advantage, laughed and boasted, "It's over now, kid!" He then charged Ness, holding his sword high. When he was near, he tried to bring his sword down upon Ness's head. However, Ness rolled out of the way and the sword merely ended up cleaving the console into two.

Alarms rang out as the green capsules opened and clear liquid was released from them. Wires and arms withdrew from the captives as each of the captives looked around to get their bearings for a moment. As each captive was freed, the surviving suits of armor stopped for a second as they no longer had access to the psychic powers of the children. Without access to the minds and psychic powers of the children, the robots were reduced to using PSI Beam, which, while effective if it hit, was difficult to aim properly, especially against teens who had just raised a psychic shield over themselves.

The High Star Elf, who was oblivious to the fact that the captive children were now free, faced off against Ness. He watched as Ness quickly backed away. He grinned and taunted, "What's the matter, kid? Scared?"

Ness merely gave a knowing smile, for two girls, one of them Kumatora, the other a fourteen year-old black-haired girl named Madeline, neared the scientist and extended their hands, lightning arcing around them. Two blasts of PSI Thunder then erupted from the hands of the two children and struck the High Star Elf in the back, blowing a hole into his body while lightning arced across the rest of it. The High Star Elf fell to the ground, dead. It was then that Madeline spoke, "That's for using us to give power to your psychic cannon fodder robots." The two then looked at Ness and smiled. "Thanks for saving us," both Madeline, and Kumatora said to him.

"You're welcome," Ness replied. After that, they went over to help the other captives against the remaining enemy forces.

Over near Paula and Poo, the other teens had their hands full. Four more Starman Deluxes had appeared on the scene and had them on their heels. Jeff had joined them and taken one of the Starman Deluxes down with a Multi Bottle Rocket. Paula had raised a PSI Shield Omega over the three of them in order to protect them against the Starman Deluxe's Starstorm Omega barrage, but the shield was weakening due to the constant bombardment of Starstorm. Paula had managed to lower the shield of another Starman Deluxe and eventually kill him with some combined PSI Thunder Omega from her and Poo. Still, that left two Starman Deluxes to deal with. Help, however, was about to arrive, for soon, lightning erupted from behind the Starman Deluxes. "What was that?" Jeff wondered out loud as the lightning struck the Starman Deluxes, collapsing their psychic counter shields. The teens risked a glance behind them and saw the freed children coming to help them, along with the parents that had been captured as well. The children each unleashed various elemental PSI onto the two remaining Starman Deluxes and while each of their attacks alone was insufficient to deal with the Starman Deluxes, together, their attacks were quite damaging. Add to that the fire from Flint, Hinawa, and other parents who were now armed with captured energy weapons that they had liberated from the lab, and the Starman Deluxes never had a chance. They were riddled with energy pulses, struck by lightning, burnt to a crisp, and frozen. By the time they fell, they resembled Swiss cheese. The only remaining enemies that came out to face them were some elves and Roswell Grays. Flint, Hinawa, and the children quickly took care of them, firing off several volleys of energy fire along with several blasts of PSI Thunder and PSI Fire.

Once the battle was over, the children and their parents gathered together and thanked Ness and their friends for helping them. Ness then told them, "There is a path that will take you down the mountain. Follow it and you should be able to escape to safety." He then turned to EVE and said, "EVE, go with them and cover their escape. Also contact any military forces nearby and tell them that the kidnapped children and parents have been saved. Once they are safe, you can rejoin us at the top of the mountain if you wish to."

"Understood, sir," EVE responded. "And I wish to," she added, referring to the fact that she wanted to be there to fight Giygas along with the others, something that her previous destruction had denied her during her last tour of service.

Ness then smiled and looked at the rescued children and their parents and told them, "Follow EVE. She'll lead you to safety."

EVE then approached them and said, "This way. Those with the psychic technique PSI Thunder Beta or higher come up to the front. That will be effective against normal and psychic shielding should we come across more Starmen. Two armed former captives should be at the back to ensure that we are not ambushed, though I will keep my sensors active to preclude such a scenario. Let us go." And with that, EVE guided the children and their parents out of the lab and down the mountain.

With EVE leading the children down the mountain that left only Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo to deal with Giygas not too far ahead. Ness then said, "Giygas probably realizes that we've freed the children. We have to fight him now so we can give the children and EVE enough time to escape."

The others agreed. They knew that Giygas would not let the release of the children go without some form of retribution. The group quickly exited the lab and made their way back into the cave. They then turned left and went forward, where the apparition of Maria appeared in front of them. Ness tried to go around Maria, but she blocked him. "We don't have time for this," Poo told her. "We have to fight Giygas before he realizes that the children and their parents escaped."

"Giygas does not know about that right now," Maria replied. "I am blocking him from being able to sense the children. It is the only thing I am allowed to do against him right now. I have come to you because you are about to fight my adoptive son, Giygas."

"Look, Missus Maria, we're not going to avoid confronting him," Ness told her. "I know that he is your adopted son and that you still love him, but he is evil. Look at what he has done. He ordered the destruction of several cities at the hands of his Starman servants. He has played with your heart and is undoubtedly trying to torture you with what he has done and is about to do if he is not stopped."

"I know," Maria replied, barely able to hold back her tears. "I haven't come here to dissuade you from fighting Giygas. I've only come to beg that if, and I do mean _if_, you manage to defeat Giygas without killing him, that you spare his life if he is willing to repent."

Ness looked at her with an expression of puzzlement. On one hand, he knew that the mother in her did not want her son to die, but on the other hand, the human in her knew how dangerous and evil her adoptive son was, and that it was likely that he was too powerful to let live if he was still evil. In the end, Ness answered, "I can't make any guarantees."

Maria then came over to him and begged, "Please. If Giygas is willing to change, please spare him. I know there's still good in him. His father and brother haven't driven all of it from him. Please help him find it once again."

Ness then said, "I'll do it if it is reasonably practical, Mrs. Maria. But only if he's already beaten, begs us to spare him, and Paula has confirmed that he's good again beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Maria did not frown, but her expression did not change. They both knew what Ness meant. He would do it only if he was stupid. He was planning on fighting Giygas to the death, and Maria knew it. Before she stepped aside, she extended her hand and a heavenly light shined down upon the teens. The light fully rejuvenated the teens and they thanked Maria for giving them her assistance. "Be careful when fighting my son," she told them in a sad voice. "I don't want you to die, either." She then stepped aside and faded from view. A faint smile showed on her face as she left. Ness viewed the smile as a sign that she was watching over them. Once Maria had vanished, Ness and the others proceeded towards the end of the tunnel. When they saw the light, they rushed towards it and exited the cave.

Upon exiting the cave, they came upon a massive plateau. Over the edge of the plateau was a massive familiar alien ship. However, the ship was not what they were focusing on, for standing near the edge of the cliff was none other than Giygas. When he sensed the arrival of the four, Giygas turned around and faced them. "So, you finally made it," he said ominously. "I must say that I'm impressed that you made it this far. I thought that the large number of soldiers I stationed at the mountain would overwhelm you. Apparently, I was wrong. But that is the past. This is now. I am going to succeed where my armies and the Sanctuary Guardians failed." He then focused his gaze on the teens. "And this time, you won't get away."

"Bring it on, Giygas," Ness told him in a cold voice.

Giygas then laughed and said, "Very well. Here goes." It was then that Giygas began to sing:

_Take a melody_

_Simple as can be_

_Give it some words_

_And sweet harmony._

_Raise your voices_

_All day long now_

_Death's not long now_

_Sing a melody of death, now die!_

At first, the teens did not know what Giygas was doing, but Ness had a bad feeling that Giygas was not singing just to pass the time, nor because he was cocky or arrogant. Ness then felt some energy coming forth from the song. It was eerily similar to the energy that came forth when the golden entity that had taken over Hannah used her voice to sing "On Eagle's Wings" while combining it with death magic. Ness realized that Giygas was doing the same thing.

"Don't listen to the song!" he cried out, warning the others. "It's a death song! If you listen to it, it will kill you!"

But it was too late. Jeff, being a normal and being more science oriented than mystically or spiritually inclined, was the first to fall to the song. He simply fell over onto the floor. His breathing then became shallow and eventually, ceased. Next to fall was Paula. She held out for a little bit longer, but her liking of music, even some types of singing proved to be her downfall as Giygas was able to psychically shield the fact that he was carrying a song of death, and she eventually fell as well. Poo fared a little better than the others. He did not fall over dead, like Jeff or Paula, but the song still debilitated to him. His resistance to it, however, did allow him to survive the song, merely being rendered unconscious rather than killed. He still continued to fight the song's influence as he lay on the ground, doing his best to remain alive, but in no condition to fight. That left Ness, whose dislike of singing had been what saved him. He would not let Giygas's song defeat him, no matter what. Despite Ness's survival, Giygas's song had accomplished its objective. Three of the Chosen Four were out of action, with two of them being dead, and the third barely hanging on by a thread. Ness glared at Giygas as he began to power a PSI Healing Omega to restore Poo to health so that the two of them could revive Paula and Jeff.

"Not so fast," Giygas cried out as he rose into the sky. He then raised his hands to the sky and a ball of emerald green psychic energy formed in his hands and grew until it was the size of a small boulder. The sphere then grew until it was the size of the peak of Mount Itoi. "You won't escape this, Ness. PSI Special Omega!" Giygas cried out. He then unleashed the blast of psychic energy at Ness.


	26. Chapter 26

Chapter 26:

Giygas directed his hands down towards Ness and proceeded propel his blast of PSI Special Omega upon Ness and the other fallen members of the Chosen Four. Ness knew that he had to respond quickly. Even though he was not considered an energy sensor, even he could sense the power behind Giygas's PSI Special Omega attack. He knew that it was powerful enough to destroy a planet, much like the Death Star superlaser beam from Star Wars. He knew that the only counter to Giygas's attack would be his own super psychic attack. As Giygas was forming his ball of energy, Ness formed his own ball of scarlet psychic energy in his right hand in direct counterpoint to Giygas's green ball of psychic energy. Ness powered his ball until it was the size of a grapefruit, a far cry from the massive ball of energy that Giygas had generated, but it was not the size of the attack that was important, but the power pushed into it. Ness continued to pump energy into his ball until he could push no more into it for fear of losing control of the blast; and if that happened, then it would not have mattered who won this clash of psychic powers, for the Earth would have been destroyed, and regardless of whether Giygas survived or not, Ness would have done the PSI Aliens' job for them. Once Ness was finished powering the ball of Rockin, he cried out, "PSI Rockin Omega!" and proceeded to propel his ball of Rockin towards Giygas's ball of PSI Special Omega, which was already headed right for him.

The two attacks flew towards each other with tremendous power at incredible speeds. The difference between the deploying of the blasts was less than a second, though to the psychically enhanced reflexes, reaction times, and perception, it had seemed like an eternity for Ness. The two balls of psychic energy soon collided in midair. A massive gust of wind issued forth from the point of contact and buffeted both Ness and Giygas as the two attacks strained against the other, trying to overpower the other. Neither attack budged an inch, however.

Giygas looked on at the current stalemate in utter disbelief. His eyes went wide at the display of Ness's power. He had initially believed that Ness's destruction of the metallic moon was a one-time occurrence and that he had pushed all of his psychic energy into that attack. This current attack, however, went to show Giygas just how wrong he was. Ness was exceedingly powerful, far more so than the other members of the Chosen Four. He knew that he would have to push more energy into his ball of Special, which he did. He pushed more energy into the ball of Special and the attack began to push back on Ness's seemingly puny ball of Rockin. Giygas smiled at the sight. He was going to win this clash after all. Ness was not about to give up, though.

Ness held his hands towards his ball of Rockin and pushed more energy into the ball, even though he knew that doing so could potentially destabilize it. Red streams of energy sailed up to his ball of Rockin and it continued to push against Giygas's ball of Special, halting its advance right in its tracks. Ness did not smile, though. He just continued to add energy to his attack and push right back against Giygas's attack. His plans were working out, since now it was the small ball of Rockin that was pushing the massive ball of Special towards Giygas.

Giygas could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw his own attack coming right at him. "No you don't!" he cried as he tried to regain control of the battle by adding more energy to his ball of Special. However, upon doing so, he saw that it was about to destabilize, which would result in the attack exploding. The best-case scenario in that regard would be that the ball exploded, likely destroying the planet, and Giygas emerge from that battle without being too severely injured to teleport back to his brother's ship, assuming his brother had not raised his ship's shields in order to ensure that Giygas would die with the Earth, which his brother was smart enough to do. Things, however, got worse as he noticed that Ness's ball of Rockin was beginning to form an indent on his ball of Special. Not only that, but the balls were beginning to move back towards Giygas a little bit. Sensing that his victory was at hand, Ness added a little more energy to his ball and gave it a mighty telekinetic shove. The ball of Rockin flattened out against the massive ball of Special, but that meant little, since the ball of Rockin was beginning to break through the ball of Special.

Giygas, knowing that if his ball was breached that he would likely suffer the worst of the effects, quickly added an extra layer to his shield and readied himself as he pushed back with his own power. The ball of Special Omega soon deformed some more and seemingly tried to encircle Ness's ball of Rockin. Giygas's trick, however, was unsuccessful and the shell of Special broke and exploded outward. Ness quickly expanded his ball of Rockin so that it would act as a shield that would send the explosion that was headed Ness's way back at Giygas. After the ball of PSI Special exploded, Ness's own ball of Rockin exploded as well, but Ness directed the charge of the explosion so most of the energy was directed at Giygas. Still, the energy that buffeted Ness sent him skidding backwards towards the entrance to the cave. He quickly checked on Paula, Jeff, and Poo and made sure that they were not sent flying into the wall at too high a speed. He used his telekinesis to arrest their momentum and keep their bodies from suffering any head injuries that would make it impossible for Ness to revive them with either PSI Healing or any of his other healing items. Once they were safe, Ness fell to his knees, breathing heavily. Even though he used little of his psychic energy before the blast-o-war, this exchange had greatly drained him. Yes he still had enough psychic energy to heal the others and continue to fight Giygas, for a time, but fighting Giygas was not something that he relished doing, not after expending close to half of his total psychic energy in that battle against Giygas.

As for Giygas, he took the brunt of the explosion. Had Giygas not had his shield up, the explosion may well have been enough to kill him. The psychic force of the explosion sent Giygas flying through the air at supersonic speeds, despite his shield. While he was flying, he could hardly believe what had happened. Ness had managed to overpower his strongest attack of all. Even though it was a relatively even battle until the end, he still could scarcely believe that he had been pushed this far by one human psychic boy. Giygas eventually arrested his momentum and came to a halt as he reached outer space, his shields still fluctuating to the point of collapse due to the damage that they had sustained. He then teleported back down into the atmosphere and then back to Mount Itoi, where he saw Ness rising slowly. He quickly took a scan of Ness and saw that the entire exchange had cost Ness almost half of his total psychic reserves. Giygas, however, still had plenty of energy left in his tank. Giygas breathed a sigh of relief. It was not as bad as he had initially believed. While Ness was indeed powerful, and his PSI Rockin Omega could eventually overpower Giygas's PSI Special Omega, Ness did not have the stamina to spam PSI Rockin Omega the way Giygas could his own attacks. Giygas then grinned. He still had several options to make sure that neither Ness, nor his friends, would ever be a threat to him again. Giygas immediately disappeared and reappeared before Ness and cried, "PSI Beam Gamma!" He then pointed the index finger of his left at Ness and fired a beam of green psychic energy that would have instantly killed Ness had he not teleported behind Giygas just as Giygas fired the beam. Ness drew his bat and swung with all his might, aiming for Giygas's body. Giygas saw the attack coming but was too slow to react. Even though he was able to move far enough away to suffer only a glancing blow, he still suffered a strong hit from Ness. The hit collapsed what was left of his shield and struck him directly in the abdomen, sending him reeling, but Giygas quickly recovered. He used Lifeup Gamma on himself and restored himself to perfect health. He then glared at Ness as the human prepared to charge another PSI Rockin attack.

"Not this time, Ness!" Giygas cried out as he pointed to Ness. "PSI Block!" Giygas cried.

Ness was not familiar with this move, but he strongly suspected, based on what Giygas had said, that it blocked one's psychic powers. Ness quickly tested this theory by trying to power his blast of PSI Rockin and targeting Giygas. Nothing happened. He extended both hands towards Giygas and cried, "PSI Rockin!" Again, nothing happened. He then tried a new psychic power. He focused on Poo tried to use PSI Healing Omega in order to restore him to health. Nothing happened. Now Ness knew that his powers were completely blocked. Giygas merely laughed.

"There's nothing you can do now, Ness," he laughed. "Only PSI Healing and revival and status healing items can unblock a blocked psychic. And I'm not going to give you the opportunity to use one, either on yourself or on your friends!"

Giygas proceeded to point his finger at Ness once more and green energy began to spark from it. From behind him, Ness could hear the sound of a jet coming to the scene. Ness tried to go evasive and avoid the beam, but Giygas was too quick this time. He drew a bead on Ness and fired his PSI Beam Gamma. The beam's aim was true, but the beam never reached Ness. A new soldier had entered the battlefield as Giygas noticed a large red robot standing in front of Ness. The robot was EVE, though Giygas had not recognized her. The robot had taken the hit for Ness. However, since EVE did not have an organic brain, or any organic components for that matter, PSI Beam Gamma was ineffective in destroying EVE. EVE then faced down Giygas and opened fire, taking aim with her bazooka and unleashing her last Saturn Hellfire missile from the first clip in her bazooka. The missile streaked towards Giygas and upon striking him, detonated. She quickly ejected the spent clip from her bazooka and slapped the second clip in place. EVE did not stop to see what damage the explosion had done to Giygas. She quickly turned to Ness and told him, "Assist the others, Ness, sir. I'll hold off Giygas."

Ness nodded and then ran over to Poo in order to give Poo the Horn of Life that he was carrying. EVE interposed herself between Ness and Giygas, who had emerged from the explosion unscathed. "Is that all you've got, robot?" Giygas asked mockingly.

She leveled her bazooka on Giygas once again and pulled the trigger. Again, a missile leapt out of the launcher towards Giygas. EVE then lowered the launcher and opened fire with all of her weapons. All of her missile launchers fired off their missiles and she also opened fire with both of her heavy energy cannons as well as the anti-personnel energy cannons. The Saturn Hellfire missile that EVE had fired on Giygas exploded against his shield, though after the smoke cleared, it was clear that the missile had done no damage to Giygas. It seemed as if it had not even dented the shield. Giygas simply stood there with a wry smile on his face as the other missiles converged on him and EVE's energy cannons unleashed a steady stream of double digit megajoule energy blasts on Giygas. Giygas laughed at the pathetic attempts of the robot to kill him and asked, "Is that all you've got? I'm not impressed. The children were stronger than you when I first fought them, oh so long ago." Giygas then extended his left hand towards Ness and the others. He opened his palm and EVE's sensors detected a large buildup of energy in Giygas's palm.

EVE, who did not seem to have any emotions beyond her loyalty to Ness and his friends, grabbed his attention by grabbing the bazooka and firing another Saturn Hellfire missile at Giygas, knowing that it would inflict no damage on him. The missile erupted from the launcher and struck Giygas within a second and a half. The resulting explosion covered Giygas in a cloud of smoke. However, Giygas had emerged from the blast unharmed. Giygas now focused his attention on EVE, declaring, "This game has gone on long enough."

Giygas extended his left hand once again and a ball of green energy began to form in front of his hand. Giygas was about to fire, and according to EVE's sensors, if he did so, Ness and everyone else here would have been destroyed. EVE then flew into the air, hoping that Giygas would concentrate on her. She quickly swerved to her right seemingly trying to make it difficult for Giygas to draw a bead on her. EVE then aimed the bazooka at Giygas once more and fired another missile from it, and then another, emptying the clip against him. Giygas merely laughed and said, "It won't be that easy for you."

The energy ball that had formed in the palm of his hand began to glow an emerald green. Giygas grinned as he said, "Time to die!" He then unleashed a vicious beam of energy upon EVE. The beam itself was wider than Giygas as it seemingly emerged from his hand. The beam instantly vaporized EVE, and the two missiles beforehand, upon striking her. EVE disintegrated as the green beam of energy rushed over her. There was nothing left but vapor. The beam traveled a great distance out over the horizon, burning through anything and everything in its path. It burned clean through one mountain, melting its way though one end of the mountain and out the other, leaving a massive glowing hole in the mountain that was so large that the mountaintop collapsed in on itself. Other mountains suffered similar damage until the beam dispersed. All in all, a line of mountains and hills had massive holes burned through them, with some of them even collapsing, by Giygas's multi-terawatt energy beam. Giygas smiled at his handiwork. "One more minor annoyance down," he said, tallying the casualties that he had inflicted. "That's three dead, and a fourth unconscious. That leaves me only one to go." The last part was spoken with a particularly sadistic grin plastered onto his face.

However, EVE's sacrifice was not in vain. While EVE had been distracting Giygas, Ness had gone over to Poo and force-fed him a Horn of Life. The Horn of Life had instantly revived Poo, who awoke in a daze. He sat up looked up at Ness and said, "What's going on? What happened?"

"Giygas sang a song of death that rendered you unconscious and killed Paula and Jeff," Ness told him. "You have to hurry and revive the others."

"Why can't you help me revive them and why did you use a Horn of Life on me?" Poo asked. He had noticed, from the taste in his mouth that Ness had used the Horn of Life rather than PSI Healing Omega.

"Giygas blocked my ability to use my psychic powers," Ness answered. "He did so by using a technique he called PSI Block."

"PSI Block?" Poo said, his mind still in a daze. He eventually recovered fully and looked at Ness. He then said, "Hold still, Ness." He then used PSI Healing Gamma on Ness and cured him of being blocked.

Upon being freed from Giygas's block, Ness thanked his friend and told him, "Now hurry and revive the others. I'll distract Giygas until they're up. We'll need to present a united front against him if we're to have any hope of defeating him."

Poo nodded and said, "I'll get on it. You be careful against him, Ness. Giygas is very powerful."

"Yeah, I know," Ness replied as he rushed off to face Giygas once more.

When he reached Giygas, Giygas had already destroyed EVE and was now about to focus on destroying the bodies of the other psychics. Giygas extended his hand towards the fallen Paula and Jeff, quickly noticing that a revived Poo was going to their aid. Ness, however, stepped out in front of them and raised a Shield Omega over the party as Giygas formed a ball of energy in the palm of his hand. He pointed his hand down at the party and unleashed the beam of energy that was even stronger than the one that had destroyed EVE. The green beam of energy erupted from Giygas's hand and struck Ness's shield head on. The shield flared as it strained against the power of Giygas's beam. However, since the shield was reflective, the beam was reflected back at Giygas. The blast engulfed Giygas, as well as creating a massive furrow in the rock of the ledge of the Mount Itoi peak. Giygas's shield was the only thing that had protected him from his reflected beam, and his shield had suffered damage due to the beam's extreme power. Once the beam had finished its attack, Giygas recoiled a bit. He quickly noticed that Paula had already risen from her death, being healed by Poo's PSI Healing Omega, and Poo was now using PSI Healing Omega on Jeff in order to revive him. He witnessed Jeff rise and ask Poo what was going on. Poo explained the situation to Jeff and soon, the two rejoined Ness.

_Damn_, Giygas thought. _Since they were revived, the song of death will not be effective against them again_. Giygas knew that things were going to get a lot more complicated now since his primary weapons against them were either now going to be ineffective, or could be overpowered by the might of the heroes, for if Ness alone could overpower his PSI Special Omega, then it was obvious that the entire group together would be able to do the same. Not only that, but the Star Pendants worn by Ness, Paula, and Jeff, and the Diadem of Kings worn by Poo protected them against Fire, Flash, Freeze, and paralysis attacks. In addition, the Goddess Bands and the Bracer of Kings protected the heroes from hypnosis as well. Still, Giygas did have some options. PSI Thunder was still open for use on anyone other than Ness. Also, Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet would be ineffective against him since he had already managed to overcome the effects of the helmet earlier. Not only that, but Giygas was also resistant to all elemental PSI, including PSI Thunder and Paula's PSI Torrent, as well as the fact that his shields and counter shields would not be breached by PSI Thunder. He was still confident that he could win. He would just have to work harder for this win.

Giygas initiated the next phase of the battle by raising a perfect counter shield over himself. This would protect him from any attack that the Chosen Four inflicted on him. Poo sensed the raising of the shield and called out to everyone in warning, "Giygas has raised his shield."

"I'll take care of it," Jeff called in response. He then proceeded to pull out his Shield Killer and took aim right at Giygas. He pulled the trigger and a stream of energy was emitted from the gun's barrel. The beam hit Giygas's shield and disrupted it, eventually shattering the shield into thousands of tiny sparks. Giygas instantly realized that his shield was shattered and that he was vulnerable to attack. Since Ness and the others did not want Giygas to have time to raise a new shield over himself, Ness pulled off his last Super Bomb from his ammunition belt and tossed it over to Giygas. Jeff added a Multi Bottle Rocket to Ness's Super Bomb. Paula added a Super Bomb of her own, and Poo quickly powered a blast of PSI Starstorm Omega. The bombs and rocket landed near Giygas and exploded into spheres of fire. The explosions engulfed Giygas and he curled his arms around his chest as the Super Bombs and the Multi Bottle Rocket's warheads converged on him and detonated. Not long after, the blue stars from Poo's PSI Starstorm Omega rained down upon Giygas and exploded into small spheres of blue energy. After the explosions, Giygas was obscured by the blast cloud that had been produced by the exploding bombs, rockets, and stars. When the smoke cleared, they found Giygas standing in the center of the cloud, showing some signs of injury. The teens noticed a few black soot marks on his face and chest, along with a burn on his chest. Still, he was smiling. Other than the burn and the black marks on his face and chest, the attacks had done little damage to the PSI Alien.

"You'll have to do better than that," he taunted. Giygas then pointed towards Ness and green energy sparked from his fingers. Ness quickly ran in a zigzag pattern, knowing that Giygas was about to use PSI Beam Gamma. Paula quickly raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party in order to protect them from the Giygas's attack. Despite Ness's evasive pattern, Giygas still managed to draw a bead on Ness. He then fired his PSI Beam Gamma at Ness and his beam of green psychic energy managed to strike the psychic counter shield over Ness. The shield flared and a field of blue energy sparked into existence as the beam was reflected back at Giygas. The beam struck Giygas right in the chest and even though Giygas had no shield protecting himself, the beam inflicted no damage to Giygas. Giygas merely laughed. "I'm immune to PSI Beam Gamma," he called out to the others. "You can't use my own attacks against me."

Giygas then grinned. He knew that he had the power to defeat the Chosen Four. He quickly raised his perfect counter shield over himself again and cried, "Shield Off!" Instantly, the PSI Shield Omega that Paula had raised over the party vanished. Giygas then powered a PSI Thunder attack, the only attack that their pendants did not protect against, and unleashed the stream of lightning upon Paula, Jeff, and Poo, being careful _not_ to target Ness in the process. However, Paula and Poo ran evasive patterns and were difficult for Giygas to draw a bead on. In addition, Ness appeared in front of Jeff, using a short-range teleportation technique, and intercepted one of Giygas's bolts of lightning. As for Paula, and Poo, they were fast enough to evade Giygas's attack, the lightning striking the ground around the heroes. Jeff took this opportunity to whip out his Shield Killer and target Giygas once again. He fired a blue beam from his Shield Killer and it instantly struck Giygas. Giygas's shield was instantly destroyed and he was vulnerable once more.

Ness and the others took advantage of his vulnerability and closed in on him. Paula used Offense Up Omega in order to increase the physical strength of herself and the others. Ness and Poo closed in on Giygas and drew their Legendary Bat and Sword of Kings and beam sword, preparing to engage Giygas in physical combat. Poo formed an electrical field around his sword, increasing its cutting power as well as its defense against Giygas's beam swords. Giygas quickly drew out his twin beam swords and ignited them. Poo and Ness then swung their weapons towards Giygas, trying to cleave him in two and/or bludgeon him. Giygas caught Poo's Sword of Kings and beam sword on his blade, while Ness tried to swing his bat and catch Giygas in the chest. Giygas quickly used Defense Up to increase his durability against physical attacks in order to minimize the damage that Ness's strike would inflict on him. Ness's bat hit Giygas in the chest, but Ness's blow barely caused Giygas to flinch. Paula then used Defense Up Omega and raised the party's physical defense as well to compensate for Giygas's increased stats. She then entered the fray while Jeff took a few shots at Giygas with his PSI Disruptor and Gaia Beam pistol. The Gaia Beam pistol's scarlet beams of energy inflicted little damage to Giygas, barely managing to inflict small burn marks on Giygas's skin. The PSI Disruptor, however, was a little more effective. While it did not inflict any physical damage to Giygas, it did disrupt his concentration, which prevented him from being able to use his psychic powers as effectively, especially in close combat. As such, Ness and the others were winning the physical fight against him.

When Paula entered the fight, she swung her Holy Frying Pan at his head after he had ducked down to try to bisect Ness, which ended unsuccessfully. Paula struck Giygas on the head, dazing the alien, causing him to fall to the ground. Paula jumped away as Poo came in and tried to stab Giygas in the chest with his swords. Giygas managed to parry the blow from Poo's beam sword, but the Sword of Kings managed to strike true. The sword bit into Giygas's flesh and Poo pushed down on the blade as it managed to draw blood. Poo pushed more energy into shoving the blade through Giygas in an attempt to pierce his heart, all the while, Ness came up to Giygas and started bashing him in the head with his baseball bat. To Poo, it was like trying to stab though triple layered plate armor, even though the Sword of Kings did have an armor-piercing tip, had its cutting power enhanced by the current of PSI Thunder riding down the blade, and had Poo's psychically enhanced strength behind it. Still, Poo was not about to give up. He pushed more energy into shoving the blade through Giygas and eventually, the blade moved further down. Giygas spasmed upwards for a second, coughing up blue blood, before falling back to the ground. Poo's sword had pierced Giygas's heart. Giygas promptly dropped his two beam swords to either side of his body. The blades of the beam swords promptly vanished as Giygas dropped them. Poo then thrust the blade further through until it emerged from the other side of Giygas's body. With a mighty jerk, he pulled the blade out of Giygas and let the blood flow out of Giygas's wound. Still, Giygas was not dead yet. As Ness continued hitting him in the head, Giygas sent forth an omnidirectional wave of telekinetic energy. The wave sent Ness and Poo flying through the air.

Giygas struggled to rise, much to the surprise of the Chosen Four. Despite having his heart pierced with a sword and likely a broken skull, he was still alive, and had no intentions of surrendering. Even though Giygas was struggling to concentrate, he still managed to use Lifeup Gamma on himself and restore himself to full health. The heroes grunted with displeasure. All of the work they had put into pounding on Giygas was completely undone. Ness then turned to Poo and asked, "Can you get an inkling as to how much psychic energy Giygas has left?"

Poo nodded and his eyes started to glow as he focused on Giygas. He sensed the psychic energy swirling around Giygas's entire body. He still had a great deal of energy left in his tank. He was far from beaten. Still, Poo sensed that Giygas did not have an infinite amount of energy remaining. He had a limit to what he was capable of. Eventually, he would give out against the heroes. The only thing the heroes had to do was to stay alive and not give out first. Poo's eyes then stopped glowing and Ness went to him and asked, "So, what's the outlook?"

"It could be better," Poo said. "But it could also be worse. Giygas still has a lot of psychic energy left. The thing is, though, that he does not have an infinite amount of energy. He has his limits."

"Yeah, but what are his limits?" Paula asked. "Giygas has already used a ton of energy already. He's used his PSI Special Omega, some telekinesis, raised his shield a few times, PSI Beam Gamma, and used other psychic attacks as well. If he's not close to empty, then we're in a lot of trouble."

"Not necessarily," Jeff said. "Giygas has yet to use a lot of elemental PSI, likely due to the fact that we're wearing Star Pendants with Poo wearing a Diadem of Kings."

"But Giygas won't be stupid enough to waste energy with elemental PSI," Ness said thoughtfully. "If anything, Giygas will continue to use the techniques that he knows are effective against us. And those techniques are quite energy intensive. All we have to do is keep ourselves alive long enough for him to simply give out."

The others nodded as they went to face the psychic alien once more. Giygas would not make it so easy for them to achieve victory, though. He used Shield Off once more and collapsed the psychic shield over the party. He followed that up by crying out, "PSI Block!" This time, he used it to block Paula's psychic abilities. He did not want her raising another psychic shield over the party and reflecting his own psychic attacks back at him.

He then powered a PSI Starstorm Omega. Dozens of green orbs formed around Giygas as he prepared to unleash a vicious psychic assault on the heroes. Poo, seeing that Giygas was about to unleash a Starstorm attack on the party, and that Paula's PSI powers were blocked, quickly powered a PSI Starstorm Omega of his own while Ness went over to Paula and used PSI Healing Gamma on her in order to restore the use of her psychic powers. Meanwhile, Giygas and Poo unleashed their attacks on each other. The green and blue barrages of Starstorm streaked towards each other and the stars from the two attacks collided in midair. The attacks were punctuated by several explosions forming in the air. Still, a few of Giygas's green stars managed to make it through Poo's counter barrage. The stars landed close to Poo and, though he was able to avoid suffering a direct hit, the explosions still sent him flying through the air. He landed almost eight yards away, hitting his head on the ground. Ness quickly went over to him and used Lifeup Gamma on him in order to heal Poo before his injury became fatal. While Ness was helping Poo, Paula and Jeff opened fire on Giygas, with Paula unleashing a stream of PSI Thunder Omega on Giygas while Jeff fired off another Multi Bottle Rocket. Paula's lightning was first to strike Giygas. Paula knew that the lightning would not inflict much damage on him, but she hoped that it would at least paralyze him so that the warheads from Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket would inflict some damage. A miracle happened, for indeed, Paula's blast of PSI Thunder managed to paralyze Giygas. While it would not stop Giygas from using psychic attacks, it would render immobile so that he could not evade the warheads of Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket. The warheads fell upon Giygas and detonated. The explosions once again covered him in a cloud of smoke and debris. However, Paula's earlier attack gave her an idea. She now decided to test this theory.

Paula then powered a snowflake of PSI Freeze Omega and unleashed it into the blast cloud. Once the snowflake reached the cloud of smoke, which was beginning to clear, Paula detonated the blast. The ensuing explosion of snow and ice engulfed Giygas, who had otherwise suffered only minimal damage from the explosions, and was about to retaliate with a double blast of PSI Beam Gamma. The icy explosion encased Giygas in a block of ice and froze him rock solid. Paula then charged Giygas with her Holy Frying Pan held high in the air as Jeff fired off his final normal Multi Bottle Rocket towards Giygas. As Paula arrived at Giygas she brought her frying pan down on him in an attempt to shatter him before he managed to escape the block of ice.

Unfortunately, Giygas broke free from the ice a microsecond before Paula managed to make contact with the ice statue and shatter him. As it was, Paula struck Giygas just as shards of ice were being propelled all around him, buffeting Paula. Still, she held firm and managed to strike him on his head. The hit dazed Giygas but did not stop him from kicking her away from him. It turned out, though, that this was fortuitous for Paula since the warheads from Jeff's Multi Bottle Rocket converged on Giygas and exploded once more. Paula quickly recovered, learning everything that she needed to know. While elemental PSI were not very effective in dealing damage to Giygas, he was still vulnerable to suffering from their secondary effects. He could still be paralyzed by Thunder, frozen by Freeze, and likely burned by Fire. She figured that burning would be the best bet since the pain from the burn could slow him down a bit.

Paula, who was now rejoined by Ness and Poo, powered a ball of PSI Fire Omega in her hand. Once the ball of flame had formed, she released it in the direction of Giygas. Ness used his telekinesis to hold Giygas while Poo powered another blast of Starstorm Omega. All the while, Paula used her telepathy to try to muddle Giygas's senses. The ball of psychic fire impacted Giygas and exploded, engulfing him in a sphere of fire. Giygas would not be taken down so easily, though, and he used his own power to quickly extinguish the flames, though the damage had been done in Paula's eyes. Giygas had suffered numerous burns on his arms, legs, and chest. The burns that he had suffered also looked to be quite painful. As it was, the others suspected that Giygas would have to use PSI Healing and/or Lifeup to heal himself.

Giygas had no problems doing such, though. After a second or two, he was back to full health, but the heroes were not letting up on him. Poo unleashed his blast of PSI Starstorm Omega on Giygas. Blue stars rained down upon Giygas, but Giygas was not concerned. He merely raised his perfect counter shield over his body and proceeded to laugh as he knew that the attacks would merely be reflected back at the Chosen Four. What happened next, however, _did_ surprise him. The stars struck his shield and they were not reflected back at the Chosen Four. Instead, they exploded against his shield, causing it to flare and forcing him backwards with each hit. Giygas was furious at this turn of events, and also on the verge of panic. This had never happened before. He had never raised the wrong shield over his own body before. Why did his shield not reflect the stars back to Poo and the others? He quickly saw the answer as he noticed Paula's eyes glowing. She was using her telepathic powers to confuse him and play tricks on his mind. While she did not have the power to control him outright, she had been more clever in the use of her power and had him think he felt what he expected to feel when he raised a counter shield, only for the shield that rose to be a normal shield.

As for the stars of Poo's Starstorm Omega, they managed to strike the shield and inflict damage on it. Not only had he raised the wrong shield, but his shield was nowhere close to being at its full power. Each star that rained down on the shield weakened the shield, allowing the next star to weaken the shield even further. Eventually, the shield collapsed and several stars landed close to Giygas and exploded all around him. The resulting shockwaves sent Giygas into the next shockwave, which resulted in him being forced to remain where he was. In addition, several stars managed to strike Giygas directly, knocking him down into the ground. The explosions of the detonating stars also inflicted further damage to the PSI Alien. Still, the barrage of stars was not sufficient to kill the powerful PSI alien.

Giygas flew out of the ground, rose into the air, and proceeded to scream. "Enough games!" he cried out as he powered a massive beam of energy in his left hand. Knowing that this was not a psychic attack, Ness raised a Shield Omega over the party while Jeff, and Poo unleashed more attacks on Giygas, with Paula continuing to confuse Giygas's senses and the use of his powers. However, since Giygas was wise to Paula's manipulations, he was able to block her attempts to confuse him. Paula quickly switched tactics and powered a ball of PSI Freeze Omega. Giygas merely laughed and proceeded to fire the green beam of energy on the heroes. The green mountain-destroying beam impacted Ness's counter shield and was reflected back at Giygas. Giygas was not concerned, though, for he had suspected as much. He teleported away from the beam and let the beam continue on into outer space. He then powered a ball of PSI Special in his hands. Once it was at its full non-Omega power, Giygas unleashed it upon the heroes.

Paula, knowing that this attack was powerful, raised another PSI Shield Omega over the party and told them, "Brace yourselves. I'm not sure if this shield will hold against that!"

Giygas grinned as the green boulder of psychic energy hurtled down towards the heroes. He knew that he had them now, for he could feel that the heroes had used up most of their psychic power against him. He could also tell by their heavier breathing that the battle was taking its toll on them physically as well. He was going to outlast them. The ball of PSI Special fell down upon the heroes and upon striking the shield, detonated, engulfing the entire party in a sphere of green psychic energy. The sphere of psychic energy was powerful and it ate away at the PSI Shield Omega. Once the shield was down it began to burn the now defenseless heroes. Before they had suffered fatal injuries, though, the attack dissipated. Still, the heroes had fallen and were struggling to rise. Both Jeff and Ness were still on the ground. Paula's natural resistance to psychic attacks came into play as she was able to rise faster than the others. Poo was also quick to rise as well. Still, Giygas knew he had them. One more blast and it would be finished.

The Chosen Four were not about to let that happen, though. As Giygas powered another blast of PSI Special, Ness powered a blast of PSI Rockin in his right hand. He did not have enough power to create a blast of PSI Rockin Omega, so he had to settle for the ball only reaching its Gamma level. While Ness was powering the ball, Paula raised another PSI Shield Omega over the party. As Jeff slowly rose, he fired off his Shield Killer at Giygas, just in case Giygas raised a perfect shield over his body to protect himself should he lose this exchange. This was when Poo got out his backpack full of Brain Food Lunches. He quickly gave one to Paula and Jeff, as well as eating one himself. The three teens quickly recovered their strength and both Paula and Jeff were close to full physical health, while Poo had recovered from all of his injuries. Poo then tossed another Brain Food Lunch to Ness. He now only had one left. Before Ness would eat, though, he unleashed his ball of PSI Rockin Omega on Giygas, who propelled his ball of PSI Special back down onto Ness.

The two attacks collided in midair and exploded in a massive display of red and green lights. Wind rushed out from the center of the explosion and buffeted both the Chosen Four and Giygas, sending the alien flying. Giygas arrested his momentum and quickly returned to the battle. He was getting tired of testing them, but he knew that this was the one exchange where he knew that he would win. He watched as Ness went down to pick up the Brain Food Lunch. He figured that Ness would not reach for an item in the middle of a battle unless he was desperate, and unless he was running low on power and/or health. Before Ness could reach it, Giygas fired a green beam of energy and vaporized the meal. Ness then turned to look at Giygas, who was now powering not one, not two, not three, but four balls of PSI Special Gamma. Ness suspected that this was likely a more controlled, and weaker, form of PSI Special Omega. Still, there was no way that Paula's PSI Shield Omega would hold out against that barrage of PSI Special. Giygas then called down to Ness and the others, crying, "Alright Ness, let's see you survive this!"

Giygas then fired the balls of PSI Special down onto the heroes, intending to finish them off once and for all. The situation was grim for the heroes. Paula's shield could only partially block one such ball. There was no way that it could block four. Ness was about to give up, something that had been alien to him, when he suddenly remembered the Smash Franklin Badges. His own Franklin Badge could reflect lightning of seemingly any power back at its source, and the Smash Franklin Badges were said to be reflect any projectile back to its source as well. Ness then cried out, "Use the Smash Franklin Badges!"

The others did not question Ness, since they knew that they did not have the power to survive Giygas's attack. The four then pulled out one Smash Franklin Badge each and slapped the badges to their chests, and then prayed that the badges would be effective against Giygas's attack. The green balls of PSI Special hurtled down towards each of them and the heroes made no efforts to evade them, which puzzled Giygas greatly. The balls then struck the heroes, but instead of detonating and disintegrating them, they bounced off of the heroes, a familiar metallic clang sounding with each impact. Giygas's heart was filled with dread as he heard the clangs. The sound of the clangs told him that the teens were protected by some form of Franklin Badge that shielded them against his PSI Special. Giygas immediately raised a shield over himself upon seeing the balls of Special headed his way. The balls of Special struck his shield and detonated, engulfing him in spheres of green psychic energy. After a few seconds, the spheres dissipated, leaving Giygas's body smoking, but otherwise unhurt. It appeared as if there were limits to Giygas's shield after all.

Ness soon fell to one knee. Poo took this opportunity to go over to him and give him one of his Life Up Creams, hoping that it would be enough to restore Ness to physical health, since he was still weakened from the initial PSI Special that Giygas had used. Ness graciously accepted the cream and devoured it. He soon felt himself be fully restored physically. Ness then took out another Special Cake and ate it. Now, he was fully restored psychically. Poo also took this opportunity to eat his two remaining Magic Truffles so that he could restore some of his psychic energy.

Giygas looked down at the heroes and grimaced. He decided to try something, just to confirm his suspicions. He powered a blast of PSI Fire and unleashed it upon the Chosen Four, targeting Ness. When the ball of fire struck Ness, he heard the metallic clang ring out and the ball of flame return to him. The fire exploded against his unprotected body and he was engulfed in flames. He quickly extinguished the flames and floated away from the Chosen Four. He knew that he was in trouble now. He could not launch any projectile attacks against the Chosen Four and they were superior to him in hand-to-hand combat. Heck, Ness alone might be able to beat him hand-to-hand. He also sensed that the Chosen Four had managed to restore their psychic energy. Giygas knew that he needed a stopgap measure. As such, he telepathically summoned four warriors to assist him. He did so for two reasons: first, because he wanted them to absorb the blows from the Chosen Four and hopefully get the Chosen Four to waste more psychic energy against them. Second, and potentially more importantly, he wanted to have a safety net should the Chosen Four actually manage to kill him in battle while they still had their Smash Franklin Badges on.

Four Starmen appeared in front of Giygas. These Starmen had golden suits with spikes protruding from their heads and shoulders. The teens instantly recognized them as Final Starmen. Ness figured that, like the other Starmen that they had encountered in this war, that these Final Starmen were also stronger than the Final Starmen that they had encountered during the War Against Giygas three years ago, their time. Ness and the others were glad to be under the protection of the Smash Franklin Badges now, for if the Starman Deluxes had gained a great deal of strength over the decades, there was no telling how much stronger the latest generation of Final Starman had become. After the Final Starmen appeared, Giygas directed them, "Final Starmen Beta through Delta, engage the Chosen Four, but do so via close combat. They have a reflector shield over their body that will reflect any projectile attack back at you regardless of its nature so don't use any projectiles or ranged attacks against them."

"Understood, Master," the three Final Starmen said as they floated down to face the Chosen Four.

Giygas then said to the sole remaining Final Starman, "Final Starman Alpha, remain here and cover me. I'll need you to revive me should I fall in battle. Also, you can cover the other Final Starmen as well."

"Understood, Master," Final Starman Alpha responded. He then floated down low enough so that he could cover the other Starmen while still remaining close enough to Giygas to assist him should he get in trouble. Giygas merely smiled. He had surmised that the reason they had not entered the fight against him with these badges on was because they were only effective for either a limited amount of time, or could only sustain a limited number of hits before being drained of energy. All he had to do was wait for the badges to be drained before engaging the Chosen Four once more. He smiled wryly at the Final Starmen that were going to engage the Chosen Four. He did not want to be those Starmen right now, for he knew that they had no chance against the Chosen Four whatsoever.

The Final Starmen descended towards the Chosen Four and prepared to engage them in close combat. Ness and the others grinned at the sight of the Starmen coming into range of their attacks. Paula and Poo quickly zeroed in on the Final Starmen as they came to try to engage them in close combat. They fired streams of PSI Thunder Omega at the Final Starmen. The streams of PSI Thunder Omega phased through their PSI Shield Betas and struck the Final Starmen, lightning arced across their bodies. The Final Starmen fell to the ground, either unconscious or dead. Knowing the threat that they posed, Ness fired a blast of PSI Rockin at the fallen Final Starmen in order to make sure that they would stay dead. The scarlet blast of energy struck the fallen Starmen and engulfed them in a sphere of psychic energy. After a few seconds, the field of energy dissipated and no trace of the Final Starmen remained.

Final Starman Alpha saw the destruction of his comrades and he roared in anger and charged towards the Chosen Four. Giygas, knowing that it was suicide, cried, "No! Don't do it!"

Final Starman Alpha paid Giygas no heed, though, as he continued his charge. He stopped a few meters above the ground and powered a blast PSI Starstorm Omega. He unleashed the blast upon the four teens and dozens of green stars streaked towards the children. The teens merely stood before him and let the stars fall among them. Several explosions formed around the heroes, inflicting no damage to the teens, but those that struck the heroes were reflected back at the Final Starman. The stars streaked back to the Final Starman and bounced off of his PSI Shield Beta and streaked back toward the teens, where they merely bounced off the teens and headed back towards the Final Starman. This tennis match lasted a few moments until the PSI Shield Beta of the Final Starman finally fell and the stars struck the Final Starman in the chest. Paula soon added a blast of PSI Thunder Omega to the reflected attack of the Final Starman. The lightning struck the stricken Final Starman Alpha and fried him. Eventually, the Starstorm barrage ceased, Paula's lightning still arcing across the Final Starman's body. Giygas looked on in horror as his one safety net fell to the ground, red and black burn marks covering his body. The Final Starman hit the ground and collapsed into a pile of ashes. There was no way to revive him.

Giygas then watched the heroes, waiting for the Smash Franklin Badges to fall off or run out of power. He would not risk attacking them until their one defense against his PSI Special was gone. He could have still engaged them in hand-to-hand combat, but his last foray against them in hand-to-hand had ended badly, and he knew that as long as Jeff had his Shield Killer, his one defense against them would be neutralized. The teens, however, did not wait for the badges to fall off. They knew that they had one chance, and one chance only, to take down Giygas, and this was it. Poo powered a PSI Starstorm Omega barrage and unleashed it Giygas. The blue stars streaked towards the cat-like humanoid alien with terrifying speed. Giygas tried to raise a shield over himself, but Jeff had immediately fired a beam from his Shield Killer, which struck Giygas. The beam immediately collapsed Giygas's shield and Poo's stars struck Giygas uncontested. Giygas was pushed back with each and every hit. Giygas psychically enhanced his defenses, but he knew that it would not be enough. He then used Lifeup Gamma in order to restore himself to full health. However, he did not know how long he would be able to keep this up. He was using up a lot of psychic energy trying to keep his defenses up and keep himself alive while he was forced to face the Chosen Four on their terms. He knew now that he had no choice but to engage them in close combat until the Smash Franklin Badges lost their power.

Giygas disappeared from the air and reappeared among the heroes. He ignited his twin beam swords and quickly made a move to stab Paula. Paula, unable to react fast enough to avoid the blow was stabbed in the heart and she slumped over and fell onto the ground. Ness retaliated with a swing of his baseball bat, catching the PSI Alien in the abdomen, causing Giygas to keel over in pain. Meanwhile, Poo went over to Paula and gave her his Secret Herb while she was struggling for breath. He shoved the herb into her mouth and waited for her to revive. Upon reviving, Paula rejoined Ness in the fight.

Ness was holding his own against Giygas in the beam sword versus bat battle. Giygas tried to behead Ness with a swing of his sword, but Ness dodged the blade and sent a wave of telekinetic energy against Giygas. The wave pushed Giygas back a few meters. Giygas stopped his backwards momentum and then charged Ness once more. This time, Paula entered the fray, firing a blast of PSI Thunder at Giygas. Giygas raised a shield over his body, which flared as it caught the blast of lightning. While the shield was weakened, it did not collapse. Jeff dealt with that by firing a beam from his Shield Killer at Giygas. Again, his shield collapsed and he was defenseless against Paula and Poo's PSI Thunder barrages. The lightning attacks struck Giygas, sending him flying backwards. Giygas cried out in pain and anger as lightning arced across his body. He hit the ground with a thud and Ness went to finish off Giygas with a blast of PSI Rockin. He powered his ball of Rockin and unleashed it against Giygas. Giygas immediately used Lifeup on himself just as the ball struck him and detonated, engulfing Giygas in a sphere of scarlet psychic energy. As quickly as the ball of Rockin burned and disintegrated his skin, the Lifeup regenerated it. Once the sphere dissipated, Giygas stood in the center of the crater, his body smoking, but he was still alive. He then fell to one knee and waited for the teens to approach. Suddenly, a plan came to him. He knew that he could not use any projectile attacks against them yet, and that his one weakness was close combat and his psychic reserves were depleting rapidly. He targeted all four teens and used PSI Magnet Omega on them, absorbing psychic energy from each of the teens. While he did not manage to absorb a lot of energy from each of them, the additional energy added up. Giygas grinned as he felt his psychic energy replenish.

Giygas used PSI Magnet again and absorbed psychic energy from the teens once more. This time, however, they added a few blasts of PSI Thunder to his energy. The PSI Thunder struck him again and sent him reeling. Giygas was slow to rise, using Lifeup Beta to restore some of his health. It was then that Giygas saw what he was waiting for. The Smash Franklin Badges fell off of the chests of the teens, something that they noticed fairly quickly, but Giygas was too quick. He instantly powered two PSI Beam Gamma attacks and unleashed them at both Jeff and Poo. The green beams of psychic energy lanced out at Jeff and Poo and speared them directly in the chest. While the bodies of the two suffered no damage, it was clear that their hearts had stopped. The two then fell to the ground, dead.

Their deaths would not last, though, for Ness charged Giygas to distract him while Paula went over to Poo and gave him one of her Cups of Lifenoodles. She shoved the noodles into his mouth and waited for him to open his eyes once more. Once Poo opened his eyes, Paula went over to Jeff and used her remaining Cup of Lifenoodles on him. Once Jeff revived, the three of them went to rejoin Ness in fighting Giygas.

Meanwhile, Ness was engaging Giygas in hand-to-hand combat. Giygas tried to swing his beam swords to cut open Ness, but Ness was too quick for him. Soon, Ness was joined by Paula and Poo, who had drawn his Sword of Kings and ignited his beam sword. Poo charged Giygas and went to try to bisect Giygas with his swords, who was able to parry Poo's swipes and blows. He then took one swing at Poo and managed to cut the hilt of Poo's beam sword, causing the energy blade to vanish. The remains of the hilt were glowing orange. Poo dropped the broken hilt of the beam sword and took a swipe at one of Giygas's beam swords with his Sword of Kings, which he had electrified. He managed to slice through the hilt of one of Giygas's beam swords, instantly destroying it. With another swing, Poo sliced the hilt of the second blade, also taking off Giygas's right hand. Giygas roared in pain and anger, looking at his missing hand, and then glared at Ness. Giygas then used Lifeup to regenerate his hand. First a stump formed at the end of his arm that eventually grew into a fist and then fingers. Eventually, the hand was completely restored. He backed away from Poo and launched another blast of PSI Beam at Jeff. Paula, however, had raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party and the beam was reflected back at Giygas. The beam struck Giygas's own shield and splashed against it harmlessly. Giygas then cried, "Shield Off!" Paula's psychic counter shield collapsed and Giygas fired another PSI Beam Gamma at Poo. The beam caught Poo in the chest and he fell over. Before Ness could use PSI Healing to heal Poo, Giygas cried, "PSI Block! Again, Ness's power was blocked and he was forced to use his Cup of Lifenoodles to revive Poo. Ness went over to Poo and fed his friend the noodles. Poo revived almost instantly after the noodles were placed inside his mouth.

Giygas, meanwhile, was not idle in his planning. He cried out to the human children, "Now it ends!" as he rose into the air. He extended both of his hands to the sky and a green ball of psychic energy the size of a small boulder formed in his hand. "Try stopping this!" he called down to the others as he pushed more energy into the green ball of psychic energy. The ball of energy continued to grow in size until it was the size of the peak of Mount Itoi.

Paula, who was running low on psychic energy, took out one of her Special Cakes and ate it, completely replenishing her reserves of psychic energy. She noticed a green shadow looming over the group and glanced up and saw the massive sphere of PSI Special. The group then heard Giygas cry out, "PSI Special Omega!" The group knew what was coming: Giygas's most powerful psychic attack of all.

Ness, who had just revived Poo, quickly told Poo, "I've been blocked again. I need to have my powers unblocked immediately."

Poo was quick to comply, using PSI Healing Gamma to restore Ness's psychic powers to him. The two then looked up at Giygas's ball of PSI Special. Giygas then thrust his hands down towards the heroes. The ball of PSI Special then fell down towards the heroes. Paula and Poo immediately stepped up and used PSI Torrent Omega and PSI Starstorm Omega respectively, while Ness powered his own PSI Rockin Omega. They knew that PSI Shield Omega would be woefully insufficient to block or reflect an attack of that magnitude.

The two psychic attacks streaked towards Giygas's PSI Special Omega. A second later, the two attacks collided with the ball of Special Omega. The two attacks managed to slow the advance of the ball of psychic energy for a second, but even together they were no match for Giygas's attack. The two attacks were quickly being pushed back towards Paula and Poo. Paula and Poo added more energy to their attacks, but it was of little avail as their attacks constantly lost ground against Giygas's ball of Special Omega. However, that would not last.

While Paula and Poo tried to hold back Giygas's ball of PSI Special Omega, Ness was powering his own ball of PSI Rockin Omega. This time, Ness was able to power the attack much faster than before. He felt a lot more comfortable powering the attack as well. He felt that controlling the ball of Rockin was much easier as he pushed even more energy than normal into the ball of Rockin Omega. Once the ball was the size of a grapefruit, he propelled the ball of Rockin up to Giygas's sphere of PSI Special Omega. The ball of Rockin quickly collided with the ball of Special Omega and the two attacks were suspended in midair, but Ness's ball was already forming an indentation on Giygas's ball of Special. With the help of Poo's Starstorm Omega and Paula's PSI Torrent Omega, Ness's ball of PSI Rockin Omega was more than a match for Giygas's PSI Special Omega. Giygas's eyes widened as he saw that his attack was being pushed back. Giygas then pushed more energy into his blast of Special Omega in an attempt to push back the teens' psychic attacks. It was a task made more difficult by the fact that Giygas was running low on psychic energy, having expended almost all of his energy in his long fight with the Chosen Four. Furthermore, he could not afford to break his concentration to absorb more psychic energy from the Chosen Four with PSI Magnet Omega because he needed all of his focus on his ball of PSI Special since the Chosen Four were pushing all of their power into their own psychic attacks, and Jeff was taking shots with his PSI Disruptor, which not only hurt him, but also disrupted his concentration as well.

As Giygas pushed more of his waning psychic reserves into his PSI Special Omega, Ness, Paula, and Poo added more energy to their PSI Rockin Omega, PSI Torrent Omega, and PSI Starstorm Omega respectively. Ness's own PSI Rockin Omega had already overwhelmed Giygas's PSI Special Omega and was pushing it back to Giygas. With Paula's PSI Torrent and Poo's PSI Starstorm Omega added to his PSI Rockin, Giygas had no chance, especially since he knew that he would not be able to hold out long enough to defeat them. Indeed, it was not long before Ness's ball of PSI Rockin Omega overpowered Giygas's ball of Special Omega and breached the ball of Special Omega, causing it to explode back towards Giygas as Ness's ball of Rockin and the Torrent and Starstorm of Paula and Poo streaked towards Giygas. Giygas prayed that his shield would be able to hold, but inwardly, he knew that it would not, so he pushed the last of his remaining psychic power into one final use of Lifeup Gamma. The extreme power of the attacks, though, was too much for even Lifeup Gamma to heal completely.

Ness's ball of Rockin Omega reached Giygas and scored a direct hit on his shield. The ball of Rockin detonated into a large sphere of red psychic energy, engulfing Giygas. Less than one second later, Paula's PSI Torrent Omega reached Giygas, as did Poo's Starstorm Omega. The two attacks added their own power to Ness's Rockin. Even Jeff got in on the action, using his PSI Disruptor and Counter PSI Helmet to confuse and distort Giygas's senses, hoping that it would be enough to allow the attacks from his friends to kill him. The ball of Rockin Omega was already tearing down the shield that Giygas had erected over his body. Once the shield was down, the ball started to burn away his body. Skin was flayed from the bones and, through the use of Lifeup Gamma, regenerated, only to be stripped from the bones again. The constant destruction of his skin and regeneration of said skin would result in a reduction of Giygas's lifespan by at least ten years, assuming he survived past this battle, which was beginning to look doubtful. He roared in rage and pain at the prospect of being defeated. Sensing that he was on his last legs, and that even his Lifeup Gamma could not keep up with the damage that the teens' attacks were inflicting of his body, he wanted to make the victory of the heroes come with a price. He tried to push his remaining psychic energy into a PSI Beam Gamma, but with Jeff's PSI Disruptor and Counter PSI Helmet confusing his senses and even sealing his psychic abilities, Giygas was unable to focus his powers into a coherent attack. All he could do was to try to survive the fight, and pray that the Chosen Four showed mercy on him. _Yeah, like that was going to happen_, he shrugged.

Eventually, Ness's ball of Rockin dissipated and the attacks of Paula and Poo ran their course. By the time the blast cloud cleared, Giygas was merely floating in the sky, his body covered with multiple burns, lacerations, bruises, and blisters. He was also completely out of psychic energy and his own body was unable to move on its own. He fell from the sky and to the ground, where he hit with a tremendous thud. The crack of bones could be heard as Giygas hit the ground headfirst. There, Giygas remained on the ground motionless, blue blood leaking from several cuts on his head. The Chosen Four watched Giygas fall from the sky. "We did it!" Jeff cried excitedly. "We beat Giygas!"

Ness was not so sure. He cautiously approached the fallen Giygas with his bat in hand. He had already powered another ball of PSI Rockin in his hand, taking aim at Giygas. Giygas began to stir and he eventually opened his eyes and looked up at the four teens as they stood in front of him. Ness and Poo's eyes glowed as they already had a ball of PSI Rockin powered for Ness, and a barrage of Starstorm at the ready for Poo. Jeff also leveled his PSI Disruptor and Gaia Beam pistol at Giygas. He also had an Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket on the ground, ready to go. Giygas tried to gather psychic energy to himself, but he was completely out of energy. He groaned as he tried to move. While his last Lifeup had managed to heal his broken skull and bleeding head, the rest of his body was in much worse condition. He also could not use PSI Magnet due to Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet, which seemed to be able to block his psychic powers once again. The Chosen Four looked down on his beaten and broken body. He could see no sympathy in the eyes of Ness, Jeff, or Poo. Even the extremely benevolent Paula was not all that sympathetic to his plight. For the first time ever, he looked up at the Chosen Four in fear. He had lost the battle. Ness and the others were victorious, and he and Poo were about to finish him off…for good. He was about to be killed and he was helpless to save himself. For the first time ever, Giygas was afraid.


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27:

Giygas struggled to rise so he could put up some kind of resistance to his impending demise as the four heroes neared. Try as he might, though, he was unable to move at all. His vision became blurry as he attempted to maintain his focus. His muscles then gave out and he fell back down to the ground. It was over. There was no way for him to save himself. He had expended all of his psychic energy in making that massive would-be Earth-shattering sphere of PSI Special Omega. And it had been stopped once again by a grapefruit-sized ball of PSI Rockin Omega generated by Ness. He could tell that Ness had used up a lot of energy in its creation and in the struggle against his Special, but the assistance of the others meant that he had not expended as much energy as he had in their initial confrontation, and the fact that he had been able to carry on after the first exchange meant that he still had more than enough power to finish off Giygas. For the first time in his life, Giygas felt true fear. He knew that he was about to die. But it was not dying that scared him the most.

All throughout his childhood with Maria, she had taught Giygas about her own personal beliefs. His people did not believe in any gods or afterlife. When one of his people was about to die, they had placed their souls inside a repository crystal in order to preserve themselves. Maria had told him that she had learned that they did so because even though they said that they did not believe in an afterlife, they secretly feared the possibility of an afterlife due to the prayers of multiple conquered and about to be exterminated people to a Universal Creator, regardless of the names given to said Creator. His people had seemingly laughed off the prayers of the about to be destroyed races as mindless ramblings and prayers that there _was_ a God and afterlife, given that their mortal lives were about to end. However, history had shown that it was only after several of these races in a row had uttered these prayers that the PSI Lords had decided to create this crystal. In fact, Giygas began to wonder if that was the true purpose of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer. The PSI Lords had wanted to create a new god from their own essences to rival the God Maria and so many others worshipped. As Ness and the others had shown previously, though, the experiment had failed since the Universal Cosmic Destroyer Giygas had been destroyed, ironically enough, by the prayers of the people of the Earth.

Giygas concentrated once more and attempted to rise again. Again, he failed and was unable to move. Yet, now, his fear had been replaced with resignation. He knew that he was about to die and that there was nothing that he could do prevent it. For a moment, an image of Maria flashed before his eyes. It was the happy, or at least seemingly content, Maria that had raised him from shortly after his own birth. He thought back on how Maria was the only one who ever treated him with any real intrinsic value. Every other member of his kind had only valued him as the soldier, killer, and leader that he would become. They valued him because they thought that he would lead them to victories, not because he was a living being that was a member of their own species. If they had believed that Giygas would have wanted to make peace with the rest of the universe and stop the rampage of destruction, his people would have immediately killed him for thinking such thoughts. And if they did not kill him, they would try to brainwash him into doing their will. They had only sought to use him, even if he turned out to be their leader. His father had only given him to Maria in order to not only siphon him off onto someone ellse while his people raped, pillaged, and slaughtered their way across the universe, but also to test him to see if he would be able to kill someone he had formed an attachment to when the time came and his father gave him the order. Giygas thought back to his fight with Maria, and how close he had come to killing her. A tear formed in his eye. Even after all that time, she had never stopped loving him. Even after his attempt to murder her onboard the Flagship, destroy the humans decades later, his torture of her descendant, Ninten, and Ninten's wife and friends in their second fight; even after all the times he had rejected her help and assistance and spat in her face, doing his best to make her suffer, even in the afterlife, she had never stopped loving him.

He saw the image of Maria standing over him as the Chosen Four arrived. She knelt down to try to comfort him, kissing his forehead and hugging him. He weakly turned his head to face her. "Forgive me, Mother," he told her sincerely. It was the first time he was truly sincere, in quite a while as he reflected back on the last few years of his life. He then weakly said to her in earnest, "I love you." All the while, his reflections had only lasted mere seconds. He looked up at the beautiful evening sky and tears formed in his eyes. He knew that he would die, and likely go to Hell because whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not, he had always believed that there was something higher than the PSI Lords, and that he, and they would all be called to task for their actions when the time came. And the time had come for Giygas. His one true regret was that when he died, he would not be able to be with Maria ever again. He would never be able to show her that he was truly sorry for what he did to her for all these years.

He turned his head and looked back up at Ness and Poo, who had raised their weapons into the air, about to bring them down on Giygas and finish him off. Jeff also leveled his Gaia Beam pistol and had activated his Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket. All that was left for him to give the word and the rocket would streak towards Giygas's broken body and likely tear it apart. Paula, however, did not raise her weapon. She looked into Giygas's eyes and saw his sorrow, regret, and remorse for his actions. She knew now beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was truly repentant for what he had done. She noticed Ness and Poo about to bring their weapons down on Giygas and cried out, "No, wait!" She then gripped Ness's arm and Poo's, trying to keep them from killing Giygas.

Her actions shocked Ness and Poo. Even Jeff gave a gasp. "Give me one good reason not to kill him," Ness growled, seething.

"Because Giygas is different, now," she told him. She knew that she had not worded what she wanted to convey to Ness and the others properly, so she explained herself, "He's facing death and now he truly knows what he's done is evil. I can feel that he is truly sorry for what he has done and wishes to make amends, especially for what he has done to Maria."

"Paula, we were just in the fight of our lives," Jeff told her.

"Giygas is the most dangerous enemy we've ever fought," Poo added. "We barely beat him by the skin of our teeth. If we give him another chance against us, we might not be so lucky next time." Ness nodded in agreement with Jeff and Poo's sentiments.

Paula had to admit that the others had good points. Giygas was by far the most dangerous opponent that they had ever encountered during their adventures. The Universal Cosmic Destroyer may have been more powerful, but the prayers of humanity had destroyed it easily enough, and the being had already lost its mind, so it did not fight smart against Ness and the others. Giygas, while not nearly as powerful as the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, was quite powerful in and of himself, and still had his mind. Save for not summoning more Final Starmen, or summoning them at the beginning of the battle, Giygas had fought a pretty smart battle. Had it not been for the Smash Franklin Badges, the teens probably would not have won the fight since Giygas's PSI Special was able to overwhelm their psychic shields and his other projectile attacks were still quite powerful. And with Giygas now having better knowledge of their abilities, he might fight them differently should a next battle come around.

Eventually, Paula responded to the others, "I know what you're saying, and you have a good point. But I still know what I felt. I think he may have truly changed now."

"You felt that before, too," Poo countered. "We all did, and he seemed to show that he was different. And yet, it was all a trick. I think he might have even been willing to kill members of his own kind in order to sell his defection if it had come to that."

"I know," Paula replied, her gaze downcast.

Giygas, seeing that they had not yet killed him, weakly croaked, "What are you doing? What are you waiting for? Kill me. I deserve it."

Ness was quite eager to oblige and was about to bring his bat down on Giygas's head when Paula stepped in front of him. "Wait!" she called to him, more forcefully this time.

"Get out of my way, Paula," Ness told her in a dark tone. "We all know how dangerous he is. He's too dangerous to keep alive."

"But remember what Maria asked of us," Paula countered.

Giygas's eyes flashed for a second. _They encountered Maria again_? A swirl of questions now went through his head. Had Maria begged them to spare his life if at all possible? He looked over at where he saw the image of Maria and saw that she was still standing there, looking at him. Was she really there with him now, at the end?

Giygas then weakly told Ness, "Do it. You know that if you fight a second battle against me, the outcome is not certain by any means." He grunted. "You must."

"No!" Maria's voice cried out. Ness recoiled at the sound, which surprised Giygas. Maria then appeared in front of Ness, backing up Paula. Ness looked straight at her and Giygas could tell that Maria was visible to him as well. "Don't kill him," she pleaded. "Don't kill my son. He has truly changed."

"Has he?" Jeff and Poo asked in unison. They still did not believe that Giygas was capable of having a change of heart so quickly. Ness, however, relaxed his grip on his bat and lowered it a bit. He remembered when he had been in the Faerie World, just after they had defeated The Fool and his consort, and how Maria had asked Ness to pray for Giygas. Not only was that a mother begging for support for her child, but also a tacit warning that Giygas might have been planning to betray them.

Giygas looked up at Maria and asked, "Why?"

"Because I love you," Maria responded.

"But…what I did to your memory in my Magicant," he contested. "I slaughtered your memory without hesitation. I laughed as I killed your image."

"Your mind was full of conflicting messages then." Maria told him, trying to comfort him and let him understand how she could still love him. "But now, your mind is clear. Beyond any of that, though, you are my son, in every way that counts. And I do, and always will, love you." Maria then turned to the Chosen Four and begged them, "Please, spare my son. This time, his change of heart is real."

Ness then lowered his bat and placed it back in the bag over his back. "Ness, what are you doing?" Poo asked, worried about his friend's sanity.

"I'm doing as Maria asks. She would not betray us," Ness answered.

"Yeah, but how do we know that she knows Giygas's heart," Jeff asked. "She was fooled once before…"

"No she wasn't," Ness interrupted. "She tacitly warned me, and the rest of you by extension, about Giygas's initial treachery when she asked me to pray for him back in the Faerie World. Here, she has directly told us that he has had a change of heart and that he wishes to join us. And I, for one, believe her."

"Me, too," Paula said, joining Ness.

Jeff and Poo were not shocked to see Paula joining Ness, since she was the first one to advocate the sparing of Giygas. Still, they were a little surprised that Ness would go along with this. Ness then told them, "I know that you might be suspicious of him. I remember how he tricked us all before, even me, who was initially suspicious of him far more so than the rest of you. But now, we have Maria, a soul from Heaven, coming down and sticking up for Giygas's honest change of heart. If that isn't enough, I don't know what is."

Ness had a point. He _was_ the one who was initially suspicious of Giygas for far longer than they were. And there was the fact that even though the outcome of a second battle may be in doubt, they had beaten him once. Chances were that if they really needed to, they could do it again. In the end, both Jeff and Poo lowered their weapons and sighed with resignation, "Okay Ness, you win." With that, Poo sheathed his blade and Jeff holstered his gun. He also proceeded to deactivate his Counter PSI Helmet and pick up the Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket that he was going to use against Giygas and put it back in his backpack. Poo, then went over to Giygas and used Lifeup Beta on him in order to restore a little bit of his health. The bit of health he restored allowed Giygas to heal from any broken bones and to recover from the larger burns on his body, but he still looked pretty ragged. And there was no way that any of the teens were giving Giygas any of their Brain Food Dinners, Lunches, or Special Cakes. They did not trust Giygas that much yet. Poo may have been willing to trust Giygas, but he was not stupid. He decided to let Giygas heal himself of the more minor injuries. It was not much of an issue for Giygas, though, since Maria went over to hug him, and upon hugging him, a brilliant light washed over him. The remaining burns, blisters, bruises, and cuts instantly vanished. The brown and black marks on his body also disappeared and Giygas felt energy flowing into his body once more. Maria had fully replenished his health.

A heavenly light then washed over the Chosen Four. They immediately felt their strength, physical and psychic, returning to them. After a few seconds, they were as good as new. Once everyone was refreshed, Maria stood near the peak of Mount Itoi and said, "I'll remain here so that you can immediately teleport to the peak of Mount Itoi should you need to go back to rearm."

"Thank you," Ness said graciously, bowing before Maria. He then turned to the others and told them, "Speaking of stocking up, we should head back to Saturn Valley to rearm and get some fresh supplies."

The others quickly looked at their inventories and heartily agreed with Ness's suggestion. The group then gathered around Ness and vanished from the peak of Mount Itoi. As they disappeared, Maria told Giygas, "It's not too late, my son. I could help you to break the link. That way, you won't…"

"No, Mother," Giygas said, shaking his head. "This is something I have to do and I cannot waver from this path. When I broke my link with you in my Magicant I permanently linked myself to the Dark One. I cannot sever that link without killing myself."

"Not by yourself," Maria countered. "But with me helping you, it can be done."

"But the Dark One is too powerful," Giygas stated in a melancholy tone. "This is the only way, now." He went over to Maria and hugged her. He then told her, "I know now that I should have listened to you earlier. Alas, it is too late now. Besides, I don't want to waste this opportunity. It's the only way to ensure the destruction of the Dark One. Besides, now, I'll be able to be with you, eventually. I love you, Mother."

"And I love you too, my son," Maria said softly as she went over to Giygas and the two embraced.

Ness and the others reappeared in the middle of Saturn Valley. Upon reappearing inside the valley, the group looked around. They could scarcely tell that Saturn Valley had suffered an attack of any sort a couple of days earlier. In fact, the only signs that the Mr. Saturns were on alert were the black tank drones that patrolled the valley. Upon spotting Ness and the others, one of the Mr. Saturns came up to them and said, "Welcome back to Saturn Valley. _Boing_. You are welcome to stay and rest, or explore any of our fine shops and restaurants. Make yourselves at home. _Zing_."

"Thank you," the Four responded. The teens then proceeded to make their way to the Saturn Item Shop to see if there were any new items in the shop. The first thing they did was to look for more Smash Franklin Badges, since they wanted more than one such badge, just in case said badges were needed for the battles that they would fight on the PSI Alien Flagship. When they inquired about the Smash Franklin Badges, the cashier at the cash register informed them, "We only have four Smash Franklin Badges left. They are priced at two thousand dollars per badge."

That was no surprise. Both Paula and Jeff went over to a nearby ATM to withdraw money from their accounts in order to be able to afford the badges, as well as anything else they might have wanted to buy. Once they had done so, they rejoined Ness and Poo at the counter, who had already gotten out four Smash Franklin Badges. They then each paid the cashier the requisite two thousand dollars, each, for the badges. After they had bought the badges, the four left the item shop.

Before proceeding to any of the other stores, the four checked their inventories once more to see if they needed any food; they already knew that they needed more weapons. Both Ness and Paula wanted to buy some more Special Cakes, so they ducked into the store and bought some cakes, bringing their totals to four cakes each. Once they were finished, they rejoined Jeff and Poo outside.

Once they were finished at the food shop, they crossed the valley and headed towards the Saturn Arms Depot. Once they arrived at the arms depot, they checked the depot's inventory. Jeff was ecstatic when he saw that the arms depot had some more Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets available. Even at two thousand dollars per rocket, he still felt as if it was a good investment, and since the funds that they had gained, and earned, during their adventures were all in Saturn Bank and Trust, the others had no problem using the funds gained from their adventure to buy a few more Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets, bringing his total to ten. Jeff felt like he would need the extra ammunition since Giygas had been able to resist multiple direct hits from the Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets and, not being psychic, they were the best weapon that he had that would be effective against the many enemy forces that they would face here. The others also saw some new weapons advertised, an Ultra Bomb. The advertisement on the wall indicated that they were as powerful as Multi Bottle Rockets, and came in clusters. They were said to be perfect against tanks and formations of power-armored enemies. The party decided to buy four such bombs, each, and strap them to their ammunition belts that they wore over their chest. This would greatly increase their non-psychic firepower and give them an alternative to the exceedingly valuable Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets that Jeff currently possessed. The only downside was the fact that the bombs were so expensive that had practically cleared out their accounts to pay for them, but they thought that it was a small price to pay for the powerful weaponry that would be vital in helping them fight against the PSI Aliens. Once they had paid for their items, the departed from the Saturn Arms Depot. When they had made it outside, they promptly teleported back to the peak of Mount Itoi.

The teens arrived at the peak of Mount Itoi and saw that the massive ship that had been sitting in the chasm at the edge of the plateau had now vanished. In its place was a large UFO, a little larger than the Transport UFOs that had transported the group to the Stonehenge in Winters, but smaller than the Sky Runner II. The UFO was hovering a few dozen feet above the ledge that the teens were standing on. Maria was standing near the ledge and watching them. She did not need to utter any words to let them know that she was watching over them. Her kind smile was assurance enough of that. When the teens stepped towards the edge of the chasm, the UFO lowered itself to the ground, landing on three legs. The boarding ramp lowered and Giygas came out to greet them.

"I sent my cruiser ahead on autopilot," he explained to the teens. "It's set on a preprogrammed course so that it would return to the fleet. However, I put a program inside that would cause it to self-destruct, making the program look like a Roswell Gray computer program that was likely hacked by the humans. Hopefully, it will not only damage the fleet, but give us more time to accomplish our mission without letting my people know that I'm no longer on their side."

"Let's hope they don't figure it out," Ness agreed. He knew that if the PSI Aliens were expecting Giygas as an enemy that the group would be in for a difficult fight getting to the Flagship.

Giygas then told everyone, "Come on, let's go. We have to hurry. The fleet is almost here. They'll be sending their advanced scouts and the first wave against Earth soon. There's no way that Earth's military forces can defeat the PSI Alien fleet, not after having expended so many of its space-capable nuclear weapons against the first two fleets that had come against the Earth."

The group then walked up the boarding ramp and onto Giygas's personal ship. Once they were onboard the ship, the boarding ramp closed behind them. Onboard the UFO, Giygas took the pilot's station while Ness and the others took various seats around the cockpit. They looked around at the gray interior and saw that the cockpit was quite plain in its look. Giygas looked back at them and told them, "The ship is meant to be controlled by only one person, and has an autopilot program initiated that will take the ship directly to Giegue's Mothership. The UFO then rose into the air and zoomed out of sight. Maria watched the UFO rise into the air and when the ship rose out of sight, she disappeared from the ledge.

Onboard Giygas's ship, the group watched as they rose up out of the atmosphere and into outer space. Once they were out of the atmosphere, Giygas left the pilot's seat and headed back to the four humans. When he got back to them, he informed them, "The trek through the Mothership is going to be difficult. Since it is also the flagship of the entire fleet, its officers entirely consist of PSI Lords, with only the strongest of our soldiers filling out the ranks of the rest of the crew, mainly consisting of Final Starmen, High Star Elves, and Elite Mooks." He then handed Jeff a datapad. Jeff activated the datapad and saw a layout of the massive city-sized Mothership. A three-dimensional display rose from the pad so that the others could study the layout of the ship. Giygas pointed out the main shuttle bay and directed the teens' attention to a red line that was following a path throughout the ship. Eventually, the line stopped near the top of the center of the massive flying saucer.

"This is the shortest route through the ship to the bridge," Giygas explained. "Unfortunately, it is also heavily guarded. Several security offices and barracks are located in that area." Several blue squares appeared on either side of the line, almost directly on the line.

Ness then interrupted Giygas, saying, "Speaking of security, what enemies can we expect to face on the Mothership?"

"You will most certainly face off against crew members on the ship, many of whom are PSI Lords," Giygas answered thoughtfully. "You will also face off against Final Starmen as well; maybe some Elite Mooks as well. Other than that, you may run into some scientists, or pleasure servants, mostly either Roswell Grays or a High Star Elves. You've already faced the Roswell Grays, so you know that they aren't much trouble. The High Star Elves, however, will be more difficult. They are capable of using magic. They aren't much stronger than the last generation of normal Starman so they shouldn't be too much trouble either. Still, you will likely be facing off against a lot of Final Starmen on your trek throughout the ship. I also suspect that you will run across your fair share of PSI Lords as well. They will be the most dangerous enemy you have faced by far."

"How powerful are individual PSI Lords and what powers do they have?" Paula asked.

"PSI Lords are as different in individual psychic powers as humans are," Giygas answered. "Some have strong psychic defenses, other have stronger physical defenses. Most know the three main elemental PSI, Fire, Freeze, and Thunder, all up to the Omega level. The raw power of their Omega level attacks varies, as does the amount of psychic energy that they possess and consume when using their attacks. They aren't like Starmen, Mooks, or psychic robotic suits of armor, who generally all have the same powers and strength at their level. You could luck out and encounter a series of weak PSI Lords that aren't all that much stronger than Final Starmen, or you could face some PSI Lords that are closer to my level, or at least the level of my father or younger brother, Giegue. Sometimes, you'll encounter a single PSI Lord with a squadron of Final Starmen support. Other times, you may face off against two, or even three, PSI Lords. Generally, the stronger PSI Lords are those who often have support from Final Starmen. The weaker PSI Lords tend to congregate together, and those that congregate together often have a variety strengths and weaknesses that complement each other."

That answer both gave slight comfort to the Chosen Four, as well as a little bit of apprehension. Giygas then continued with the planning of the storming of the Mothership, "Just so you know, you, alone, won't destroy my people if you merely destroy the Flagship. There are several PSI Lords on other ships as well, mostly battleships and carriers. I have a way to assist you in destroying the fleet, though." Giygas then went over to Jeff and pushed a few buttons on the pad. Immediately, the hologram of the layout of the ship disappeared and a series of letters and numbers appeared on the datapad. "These are the codes to the ship, as well as a computer virus that will disable the shields of the rest of the fleet. I can also use the virus to cause the ships to self-destruct. And those that don't self-destruct should fall to Earth's remaining defenses."

"Let's hope so, at least," Jeff said.

"It should," Giygas told him. "Still, the computer defenses onboard the Flagship are strong enough to protect the ship, itself, against the virus. We'll have to destroy the ship ourselves, and hope that we are able to evade any evacuating UFOs that will undoubtedly come after us."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Ness said sagely.

Jeff then reactivated the three-dimensional hologram and showed the layout of the ship. It then focused on the upper right quadrant of the ship and showed a computer console. "This is the console station where you have to upload the computer virus," Giygas told the teens. "It should be able to transmit the virus to the rest of the fleet."

"What security precautions are around the console station?" Poo asked.

"It's in the communications center, so it should be protected by at least two PSI Lords," Giygas answered. "The virus was a secret weapon should the fleet ever go rogue and try to kill my brother or father." Giygas gave a chuckle. "As you can see, my father and brother don't trust the rest of my people very much. I guess it pretty much runs in the family. My grandparents were like that as well before they sacrificed themselves to become part of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer."

Ness and the others did not care about that. All they were focused on right now was being able to get onboard the flagship of the PSI Alien fleet. Soon, a chime sounded and Giygas looked back at the pilot's console. A red light was flashing. Giygas went over to the station and checked his readings.

"We're approaching the fleet," Giygas called back to the others. The teens went over to the control stations close to Giygas and looked out the cockpit window. Outside, they saw two-dozen flying saucers approaching. The ships flew past the cockpit window and continued on towards Earth. The saucers were massive ships that greatly dwarfed Giygas's ship. As the group looked ahead, they saw a large number of UFOs off in the distance. There were a few ships that were not saucers, though. These were in the shapes of triangular wedges and or ships that were similar to logs. The teens looked out around them as Giygas's UFO flew past the fleet. There must have been hundreds of ships, possibly even thousands of ships. With their shields up, the teens figured that there was no way that Earth could fight off a fleet of this size.

Giygas eased his ship through the fleet, broadcasting his IFF code to the rest of the fleet identifying himself as not only a friend, but also as the brother of the leader of his people, and the son of their previous leader. Giygas used his telepathic capabilities to shield the others from being detected. As they continued to make their way throughout the fleet, they found a large gray flying saucer looming in the distance. That was their target. Giygas could already sense the presence of his younger brother and his father. A voice spoke in an alien language over the radio. Giygas then responded in what Ness and the others believed to be the same language. The voice spoke again and Giygas spoke another phrase in the alien language before shutting off the radio. He then guided his ship to the Flagship.

"What was that about?" Paula asked.

"It was the Flagship asking for our clearance code and IFF code. I gave proper response and he was told that the flagship was bringing us in."

Giygas then set the ship to autopilot again and the ship shuddered a bit. "Don't worry," Giygas said, easing their concerns. "That was merely the tractor beam grabbing us and guiding us into the shuttle bay. They don't suspect us at all."

Giygas then relaxed from the controls and continued to shield Ness and the others from scanning from the other PSI Aliens. The image of the large Mothership grew in the cockpit window as they approached the ship. After a few minutes, the ship filled the entire cockpit window and the tractor beam guided them into one of the landing bays. The doors slid open and the ship approached the light on the side of the flagship. The ship slowly approached the shuttle bay and soon entered the bay. Squadrons of UFOs of various classes lined the floor, as well as several large mechas and robots. Inside the bay, the tractor beam generator guided the ship to an empty spot in the bay. The ship descended to the floor and landed with a small shudder and clank. Onboard the UFO, Giygas and the others rose after the ship had landed. "Okay, guys. Let's get this over with," Ness said. The group grabbed their weapons and went over to the exit ramp, ready to face whatever came up against them.


	28. Chapter 28

Chapter 28:

As Giygas's personal UFO landed, two Final Starmen, a male and a female High Star Elf, and what looked to be a male PSI Alien approached the craft. As they did so, they drew ceremonial weapons from their holsters and/or sheathes. The High Star Elves drew gun-halberds, halberds with energy projectors at the end of them. The Final Starmen drew two straight-edged blades that looked like they could be charged with psychic energy to increase their cutting power, and the PSI Alien merely drew a gun of some sort. However, this was not due to ceremony. They were just making sure that there were no intruders. Giegue was not yet aware of Giygas's return so the sentries had no idea who or what would emerge from the UFO. Giygas telepathically sensed all of this and he quickly transmitted the information to the others. He also managed to glean the magical and psychic abilities from the High Star Elves and the PSI Alien as well.

"There are two Final Starmen, two High Star Elves, tall humanoids with pointed ears just like those of normal elves and magical powers, and a PSI Lord," he explained. "The female High Star Elf is a powerful magician that uses elemental magical powers that are similar to PSI, but are capable of being blocked by a normal shield. The PSI Lord is a different story, however. He's one of the stronger of my people. He knows Starstorm, all three of the standard elemental PSI at their Omega levels, and has his own special PSI attack, though his Starstorm Omega is his strongest offense. He can also raise a PSI Shield Omega, though he does not know how to use normal shields. He also is a bit weak in the physical defense and durability departments. His standard condition, though, is to have a PSI Shield Beta raised over his body. If you're ever in doubt, though, check the scanner. That will be able to identify what powers your enemy has."

It looked like Ness and the others would be testing those Ultra Bombs and Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets pretty quickly after all. The others formed up near the ramp. Giygas told them, "Wait here. I'll go out to meet them. Hopefully I'll be able to get them to go back to their stations somewhere else on the ship. Hopefully, that will clear the way for you. If not, you will be in for a long and difficult journey."

"Right," the others said in unison. They then waited as Giygas extended the boarding ramp to the ground. Once the ramp was lowered, he walked out to meet the party.

Upon laying eyes on Giygas and seeing that it was their master, the Final Starmen and the High Star Elves recoiled a bit and bowed before him. The PSI Alien male, however, merely looked at him with surprise. "Master Giygas?" he said, surprised at the appearance of Giegue's older brother. "What are you doing back on the Flagship?"

"I am here to make sure that everything is in order for the final assault on Earth," Giygas replied gruffly.

"We received no word of your arrival," the young PSI Alien told him. He then tried to telepathically contact Giegue to inform him of his older brother's arrival. Giygas grimaced. He feared that this would happen. He did not want Giegue to know of his arrival yet. If he could help it, he did not want Giegue to know of his arrival at all.

"I kept my coming to the ship secret on purpose," Giygas retorted. "There was no point in coming at all if you knew that I was coming. I needed to see how everything was going without having someone breathing down your neck. Besides, Giegue knew I was coming anyway, so you don't have to tell him that I'm here."

The PSI Alien looked uncertainly at Giygas. He suddenly realized that he could not read Giygas's thoughts, nor could he sense anything onboard Giygas's UFO. "Why can't I read your thoughts or sense what's onboard your ship?"

"Because I'm blocking your scans, moron," Giygas answered angrily. "I want to maintain my privacy."

"Why won't you open your mind to me, Master?" the PSI Alien asked gruffly, becoming suspicious since Giygas was being so evasive. He had always heard that Giygas was never evasive about anything. His mind had always been open to others before. He needed to find out why was he closing it off now. He telepathically told the others in his party to form up next to him. The Final Starmen and the High Star Elves did so and he then told Giygas, "Master Giygas, please step away from the ramp and allow me to board your ship."

"On whose authority?" Giygas roared in protest.

"My own. As per Article Thirty-seven, paragraph six: 'anyone behaving in a suspicious manner is liable to be scanned by one or more security personnel and should he or she possess a ship, said ship is to be thoroughly searched. Should a search turn up something suspicious or outright treasonous, then said being may be executed on the spot.'"

Giygas grimaced. The PSI Alien was using "the book" against him. And it was effective, for the PSI Alien did, indeed, have the authority to check the ship. He decided to let Ness know that someone was about to come onboard. Unfortunately, the PSI Alien picked up on the transmission and asked in a suspicious tone, "Who did you just contact? I sense no one onboard your ship."

Giygas knew that he had been had and replied, "No one," in a gruff tone, meanwhile alerting Ness and the others that he had been made and to come out guns blazing when the time was right.

"Step away from the ship and let us onboard," the PSI Alien demanded.

"Make me," Giygas replied as he held them in place with a telekinetic bubble. The PSI Alien and the others then focused their power on Giygas and fired a series of Starstorm barrages. Fortunately, they were only at the Alpha level, and thus, Giygas's shield was able to repel the attacks. The force of the attacks, however, had hurled Giygas back up the ramp and onto the ship, just as he had intended. That was the signal. Ness and the others came bursting out, with Ness and Paula holding Ultra Bombs in their hands. They tossed the bombs towards the PSI Alien, whose powers were being temporarily jammed by Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet. Jeff also fired a blast from his PSI Disruptor as well, just to make certain that the PSI Alien would be unable to focus on using his powers. The Ultra Bombs fell among the enemy party and exploded, instantly killing the High Star Elves before they could even react to the teens, and throwing the Final Starmen and the PSI Alien to the ground. Jeff took a few shots with his Gaia Beam pistol at the Final Starmen, shooting them in the head, to make sure that they stayed down permanently. Giygas also formed an electrical blade and extended it from his hands, straight towards the stunned PSI Alien. The sword struck the psychic shield of the PSI Alien, but was not reflected. Jeff was quick to cover Giygas with his Shield Killer, firing a beam from the weapon that collapsed the psychic shield over the PSI Alien. The PSI Alien tried to respond with a blast of PSI Starstorm Omega, but Poo had closed the distance and thrust his electrified sword through the PSI Alien's heart. Giygas added to it by thrusting a second psychic electrical blade through the unfortunate PSI Alien's brain. The PSI Alien slumped over and fell to the floor, dead. However, the damage had been done.

Alarms were blaring all around the landing bay. Giygas looked behind him and found two R7040s activating at the other end of the bay. He quickly powered a blast of PSI Starstorm and opened fire on the two robots. Green orbs of energy appeared around Giygas and streaked towards the two robots. The robots extended their hands towards Giygas but were unable to fire before Giygas's Starstorm barrage reached them and blew through their heads and torsos. The robots fell over, headless and with massive holes in their torsos with a massive clank.

After dealing with the robots, Giygas scanned the landing bay to see if there were any more enemies in the bay. Giygas then shorted out the security cameras and blew out the alarm klaxons inside the landing bay. When it appeared as if they were alone. Giygas sat down with the others and told them, "I'm certain that my brother, father, and the rest of the crew now know that there are intruders onboard the vessel. We'll have to hurry. They'll soon be coming upon this location."

"We've still gotta go to the communications center and transmit the computer virus to the rest of the fleet and, hopefully, either destroy the fleet with the virus, or have Earth's forces destroy it," Jeff said.

"They'll undoubtedly have the comm center under heavy guard," Paula told him. "If they already have two PSI Aliens guarding the place under normal circumstances, what do you think they'll have guarding the console now?"

"They'll definitely suspect that we'll be planning something bigger than a potential assassination attempt if they think that this is an infiltration mission," Poo added.

"I may have a way of distracting most of security away from the rest of you," Giygas told them. "I'll simply go up and cut a swath through the rest of the ship, making the others think that this _is_ an assassination attempt against my father. The rest of my people might not like my brother, but they love my father. They will abandon their posts in order to protect him, regardless of Giegue's orders."

"And I could go for Giegue," Ness suggested.

"That's a good idea," Giygas said, nodding approvingly. "My brother will frantically order security to protect him. That might even divert the security forces away from the transmitter and allow us to transmit the virus to the rest of the fleet. Still, we will only be able to order the self-destruct of about three fourths of the fleet, maybe a few more ships. The shields should still stay down for a few minutes, though. Hopefully, Earth will have enough missiles left to destroy the remainder of the fleet. And after I've diverted security away from their posts, I'll join Paula and Jeff, just to make sure everything's going according to plan."

"Poo and I will go and make our way directly to Giegue, hopefully diverting enough security away from Paula and Jeff to allow them to get to the console and transmit the virus to the rest of the fleet," Ness told the others. "And even allow you to join Paula and Jeff at the communications array." Ness directed that last bit at Giygas.

"Why you and Poo?" Paula asked. She had wanted to be with Ness during the mission since she felt as if her psychic shield would be essential in protecting him from psychic attacks, which were practically the only attacks that the PSI Aliens knew.

"Because, Jeff isn't a psychic and will fall quickly to psychic attacks, even with his Counter PSI Helmet and PSI Disruptor," Ness told her. "You can raise psychic shields that will help protect Jeff from psychic attacks. Both Poo and I can withstand psychic attacks better than Jeff. We can take a blow or two from a psychic attack and survive long enough to heal ourselves."

Paula nodded contritely. "I understand," she said, admitting that he had a point. "You be careful out there, Ness," Paula admonished. She then gave him a hug and commanded, "Live through this, Ness."

Ness grinned. "Don't worry, Paula. I will."

"Once we're finished uploading the virus, we'll regroup with you," Jeff told him. "If all goes well, we should regroup with you before you reach Giegue. And should you reach him first, wait for us," Jeff warned. "Giegue is Giygas's younger brother. Giygas may be stronger than him, but we would be fools to underestimate him. He's going to be a tough opponent."

"We won't," Poo told him.

"You be careful too, Paula," Ness told her. "You'll probably be facing PSI Aliens on the way and it's only going to be two against one, if you're lucky. Don't take any needless risks."

"We won't," Paula assured him with a kind smile. "We'll live and when we're done dealing with the rest of the fleet, we'll rejoin you."

Ness then gave Paula a smile.

Once the plans were made, the group proceeded towards the exit of the landing bay. Before reaching the exit, though, they found some unused uniforms for crew members of the fleet. The uniforms were gray and had the Starman insignia on their chests. The uniforms seemed to be designed to cover the torsos and legs of the wearers, though there was one uniform that was missing the sleeves. It seemed to be designed for a woman. Paula took that one and put it on. Ness and the others quickly put on their own uniforms. The uniforms loosely fit over their clothing, but once they were on, they compressed, as of they were designed to be formfitting. The humans then performed a series of weaves and dodges, attempting to see if their own movements were inhibited by the tight uniforms. They found that they could move adequately enough to not be at a disadvantage while fighting. Even better was the fact that there was another datapad among the uniforms, which Ness took for himself. Once they were ready, the group proceeded to exit the landing bay. Once they found themselves in the next corridor, they spread out and headed to their respective destinations, surprised that this corridor was clear.

The group continued down the corridor until they came upon a turbolift. Surprisingly, they had not encountered a single enemy soldier as they approached the turbolift. They approached the lift and pushed the call button. As they waited, a group of Final Starmen approached the Chosen Four and Giygas and upon sighting the group, they opened fire on them with blasts of PSI Thunder Omega. Apparently, the uniforms did not fool anyone on the ship. Paula raised a PSI Shield Sigma over the party to intercept the lightning attacks. The lightning struck the shields and splashed harmlessly over them. Poo and Jeff returned fire with blasts of PSI Thunder Omega and scarlet energy pulses from Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol; they did not want to waste any of their Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets or Ultra Bombs on mere Final Starmen. The lightning phased through and neutralized their psychic counter shields and struck the Final Starmen directly. In addition, the Final Starmen were pelted by multiple energy blasts fired from Jeff's pistol. The energy blasts burned several holes in the chests and heads of the Final Starmen, felling the aliens. Eventually, the elevator arrived at their floor and the doors slid open. Ness and Giygas ushered everyone onboard while they fired their strongest PSI attacks on a PSI Alien that had arrived on the scene, searching for the source of the sounds of the fighting. The two psychic attacks met no shields and were sufficient to annihilate the PSI Alien as the doors to the lift closed. After the doors to the lift closed, the elevator rose a number of levels before opening once more. Seeing that the others were aware of their presence, Giygas told them, "Okay, change of plan. I'm going to assist Paula and Jeff in getting to that console. My father and brother will likely expect an attempt to take down the fleet so they'll have extra security around the transmitter console. Once that's done I'll go face off against my father."

Ness had no problems with that. Before leaving, though, Poo handed Jeff three of his Life Up Creams. He wanted Jeff to have access to healing items since he knew that they were likely going to be facing the worst of the enemy. Eventually, the lift arrived at Paula and Jeff's destination. The doors slid open and the two flew out into the corridor along with Giygas. Paula took one look back at Ness and smiled coyly at him. Ness returned her smile as the doors closed. Once they closed, the lift continued going up until it came the highest authorized floor for the lift. The doors then slid open and the two went out into the corridor, and were promptly met by two PSI Aliens, along with sixteen Final Starmen, eight per PSI Alien. Their eyes widened with surprise. "So much for having an easy trek," Poo lamented. Ness nodded in agreement. The teens were in trouble. The two PSI Aliens would be trouble enough, but the addition of eight Final Starmen seemed like overkill. What's more was that they knew that they could not risk using any PSI, save for PSI Thunder, against the PSI Aliens because even if the PSI Aliens did not have any psychic shields or counters, they knew that the Final Starmen did. Seeing little choice, Ness and Poo drew out their weapons and did the thing that the PSI Aliens and the Final Starmen least expected. They charged forward and attacked.

Meanwhile, a number of levels down from Ness and Poo, Paula, Jeff, and Giygas were engaging in a battle of their own against a group of four PSI Aliens. Unlike Giygas's initial estimate these PSI Aliens were quite powerful, and each of them also knew Shield Omega, and each had raised such a shield over the rest of their party, which in essence, rendered physical attacks useless against them, and quite detrimental to the humans and Giygas. Jeff pulled out his Shield Killer, but he knew that all it would do was knock down the shield over one of the PSI Aliens. He fired a beam from his Shield Killer and took down the shield of the lead PSI Alien. Still, Paula and Giygas were far from helpless. Paula, who wanted to conserve her PSI, used PSI Freeze Omega against one of the PSI Aliens and launched a snowflake of psychic energy at him while Giygas merely created an emerald sphere of PSI Special. The shields over the party would not protect them from Paula and Giygas's psychic attacks. Paula's PSI Freeze impacted the PSI Alien in the chest and exploded, encasing the PSI Alien in a block of ice. This was extremely lucky since he could now be shattered with a single swing of a frying pan. Giygas did one better, since that PSI Alien still had his Shield Omega active, by unleashing his sphere of PSI Special upon the party. The blast fell among the party and detonated, engulfing the entire party. The frozen PSI Alien was immediately shattered into thousands of shards of ice, while the others had increased their psychic defenses in order to survive Giygas's attack.

Jeff, meanwhile, targeted a second PSI Alien with his Shield Killer and stripped him of his psychic shield. The three remaining PSI Aliens retaliated by unleashing blasts of PSI Fire on the party, intending to kill the humans, not realizing that the humans were wearing Star Pendants, which protected them from Fire attacks. Paula stepped in front of Jeff and shielded him from the cones of PSI Fire Omega. Since Paula was psychic, she was able to withstand the psychic flames and with the assistance of her Star Pendant, she suffered only minimal damage to her suit. Jeff still suffered some glancing blows from the flames before Paula managed to shield him, but his Star Pendant had prevented him from being set ablaze by the fire. After the fires died down, Jeff peered out and fired another beam from his Shield Killer and took down the final shield that was over the third remaining PSI Alien. Jeff then pulled out an Ultra Bomb and tossed it at the PSI Aliens. The bomb landed in front of the aliens and exploded, hurling them through the air. Paula quickly added her own Ultra Bomb to the mix. Her bomb landed among the trio of PSI Aliens and exploded. The bomb exploded right next to one of the PSI Aliens and blew the PSI Alien in half, and its sphere also burned the other two PSI Aliens and pelted them with shrapnel. Jeff fired a blast from his Gaia Beam pistol at the head of the PSI Alien that was blown in half to make sure that he was dead. The beam burned a clean hole into the PSI Alien's head neutralizing any threat that the PSI Alien may have posed, the clean hole indicating that the alien had already been dead. Jeff then focused on the other two PSI Aliens and fired on them with his Gaia Beam pistol. He fired on them with his Gaia Beam pistol while Giygas stabbed the other PSI Alien in the head with a psychic blade of energy. Paula finished the last PSI Alien with a blast of PSI Thunder Omega. With that, the final PSI Alien fell to the ground, several holes burned into him while lightning arced across his body. After the lightning died down, the PSI Alien stopped writhing, apparently dead. Jeff made certain with a single shot to the head from his Gaia Beam pistol. After the battle, the group continued down the corridor. Jeff took out one of the Jars of Piggy Jelly and ate it to recover his strength and heal his injuries that had been suffered in the fight against the PSI Aliens.

The corridor they were traveling down was lined with a line of yellow lights. "They're on Security Alert," Giygas alerted the others. "We can expect pretty heavy resistance in getting to the comm console." That statement gave Paula and Poo no comfort, but they suspected as much. As such, they remained on guard.

They soon came to fork in the path. "Right," Giygas said, turning right. Paula and Jeff followed closely behind. It was not long before they encountered another party of PSI Aliens. This party consisted of what looked to be a quartet of PSI Aliens, being supported by a large number of Final Starmen and Elite Mooks. Giygas quickly scanned the party and told them, "The PSI Lords have Shield Betas up, and, as you know, the Final Starmen all have PSI Shield Betas up as their natural defense."

Jeff figured that now would be a perfect time to use one of his Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets. He activated his Counter PSI Helmet, turning on its PSI jamming signal, which he hoped would jam the PSI of the Final Starmen and Elite Mooks, and possibly even a PSI Alien or two, and targeted the Final Starmen. Giygas looked over to him and shook his head. "Don't use that now," he told Jeff.

"Why not?" Jeff retorted. "We're facing an army out there. I can pick my targets with this."

"Don't start using those weapons yet. You'll have more need of them later," Giygas told him. "Let me handle this situation."

Giygas then stepped out in front of Paula and Jeff, each of who now held an Ultra Bomb in one of their hands, and their Holy Frying Pan and Gaia Beam pistol in their other. "Shield Off!" Giygas cried. Immediately, the shields of the Final Starmen and the PSI Aliens completely collapsed and they were vulnerable to attack. Paula and Jeff then put away their Ultra Bombs, knowing that they could now take on the army without wasting such valuable weapons, with Jeff drawing out his Hungry HP Sucker. Giygas and Paula then proceeded to power their strongest area-of-effect psychic attacks, PSI Special and PSI Torrent Omega respectively. Giygas formed four emerald balls of psychic energy around him, just as he had during the battle against Paula, Jeff, and the others on Mount Itoi, and when they were fully powered, he unleashed them against the army of PSI Aliens, Final Starmen, and Elite Mooks. In addition, Paula unleashed her wave of PSI Torrent Omega, and Jeff waited for the fireworks to clear so he would know who he had to shoot. The four green balls of psychic energy targeted the leading PSI Aliens and Paula's wave of PSI Torrent Omega washed overt the entire enemy party. The Elite Mooks and the Final Starmen never had a chance. The Elite Mooks were completely crushed and washed away by the tidal wave of psychic water that Paula had unleashed throughout the corridor. While some of the Final Starmen were able to withstand to the wave of PSI Torrent, the survivors had emerged from it heavily damaged, and thus, stood no chance against Giygas's balls of PSI Special. As for the PSI Aliens, those who sustained direct hits from Giygas's balls of PSI Special, plus a hit from Paula's wave of psychic energy were hurting, with two of them even being killed by the initial volleys. However, the other two survived the attacks, which meant that it fell to Jeff to assist the others in finishing them off. Jeff took several shots with his Gaia Beam pistol, targeting the Alien who looked to have sustained the most damage. After four shots, the weaker of PSI Aliens fell to the ground and ceased to move. The other one, however, launched a counterattack of his own. He powered a barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega and unleashed it against the heroes.

Paula countered his barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega by raising a PSI Shield Omega over herself, Jeff, and Giygas. The green orbs that the PSI Alien was unleashing on the party were stopped a few feet away from the heroes by Paula's shield, which flared, producing an orange hue as it was hit, and sent back the stars from the attack with terrifying force. Unfortunately, the PSI Alien, never having encountered resistance like that of Paula and Jeff, nor having faced off against one of his own kind in mortal combat before, had not taken the proper precautions and did not manage to raise a psychic shield of any kind before he was bombarded by the stars from his own Starstorm Omega. The stars scored direct hits on the PSI Alien and detonated, engulfing him in small spheres of psychic energy. The PSI Alien was vaporized by his own attacks. However, the heroes could not rest, for just as the first wave of enemies was defeated, another wave came, and this one was larger than the last.

"Okay, time to go," Jeff declared as he fled in the opposite direction. Giygas and Paula agreed and they fled back down the corridor. They ducked into another corridor that was out of the way. Jeff laid down an Ultra Bomb and set it to motion-sensing and hoped that the explosion would be enough to kill some of the Final Starmen and Elite Mooks, if not a PSI Alien or two. Paula added a couple of Super Bombs to the mix, hoping that their explosions would cause further damage to the enemy force. If nothing else, the explosions should at least give them a few seconds to get ahead of their pursuers. After he set the bomb, the group fled down another corridor.

Inside the corridor, Giygas, who was standing by a door, quickly said, "In here." He pushed a green button on a keypad that opened the door. Just then, an explosion sounded. The bombs had gone off. Giygas used his telepathic senses to tally the casualties and then informed the others telepathically, _One PSI Alien dead, with two wounded. As for the Elite Mooks and Final Starmen, we have eight Elite Mooks dead, with many more injured severely, possibly fatally, and six Final Starmen dead, with four severely wounded_. The door then slid open and the group ducked inside a dark room. Once they were inside, Giygas shut the door and raised a security field over the door. Not only would the security field hold up against breaching charges, but it also blocked telepathic scans, and sent back false readings to anyone trying to scan through the door.

Once Giygas was finished, he said, "There, that should hold them for a while. With any luck, they'll run by us, not sense anything in here, and go to a different portion of the ship to continue the search."

The others nodded hopefully. The group then moved away from the door and looked for a light switch of some sort. Paula stumbled upon a switch and flicked it. Immediately, light flooded the room from lamps above them. Once the room was illuminated, they found that the room looked like a chemistry lab. There were beakers, flasks, and even liquids of all colors in the lab. Not only that, but there were other machines as well, some of which Jeff recognized. Jeff saw what looked to be two Rust Promoter DXs sitting on a far table. He went over to the table and found that they were, indeed, Rust Promoter DXs. He quickly gathered the machines and placed them in his backpack. He then went back to the others.

While Paula was exploring the lab, she quickly stumbled across two gift boxes and decided to check out their contents. Inside the boxes, she found two regular, normal strength bombs. She was not all that impressed, but she figured that they may be of some use in the future, and since they were in the heart of enemy territory, she could not have too many munitions. Once she had placed the bombs in her backpack, she went back over to Giygas and waited for Jeff to return.

After Jeff returned, he asked Giygas, "What is this place? I found two Rust Promoter DXs, inventions of mine, in here."

"And I found two normal bombs," Paula added.

Giygas then answered their questions. "This is my lab," he explained. "I built this secret lab in order to study humans: their technology, biology, culture, and laws. Such things are frowned upon by my people. My people are arrogant, which is surprising considering the events of the Chaos Wars, and dealing with enemies like the Dragon/Magic Lords and all of the other races we've encountered. I made a few trips back to Earth in the intervening years after my first defeat, at the hands of Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd, in order to collect and study your technology, and try to find out the reason for its rapid progression. That is when I discovered some things that were off, especially regarding the four of you," referring to Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo. "I discovered that you had technology that was decades, at least, ahead of anything else that humanity possessed. I took it upon myself to build this lab in order to study you and find out why that was so and how it had happened. My findings aren't important right now. What is important, though, is that I managed to concoct several potions while I was studying humanity. I had originally done so in order to study the effects of the potions on humans. I used a set of ingredients, both those native to Earth, as well as other planets, and I managed to come up with a Full Restoration Potion. The recipe is up on the wall. I wrote it in my native language as well as English, your planet's primary language."

Jeff went up over to the wall and found the instructions for the potion. He then declared, "I'm going to make one of these potions for each of us."

"Don't make one for me," Giygas told him. "The recipe on the wall is only effective on humans."

That did not stop Jeff from going over to the chemistry lab set and going to work concocting the potions. It took him the better part of an hour to finally make the potions. Once they were completed, he poured the red liquid into four vials. He then corked the vials and went over to Paula. He handed Paula one of the vials. Paula accepted the vial and placed it inside her backpack. Giygas then went over to them and told them, "Those potions will fully restore anyone who drinks or has the liquid placed inside their mouths. The potions will also allow you to keep any psychic enhancements, such as the effects of Offense Up or Defense Up, but will fully restore your power if you were under the effects of decreased strength and/or durability."

"Good to know," the two humans replied.

Giygas and the others then went over to the door and said, "The coast is clear. Let's hurry." He then opened the door and the trio ducked back into the corridor and retraced their steps in the hope of getting to the comm transmitter console without running into any resistance.

On the bridge of the flagship, Giegue and his father, Goog, watched as the fleet began its approach towards Earth. He marveled as the magnified image of Earth grew larger on the viewscreen. "Time to destination," he called down to one of the subordinate PSI Alien officers at the helm.

The officer responded, "At present speed, approximately six hours, my lord."

"Come on, come on!" Giegue cried out. "We've gotta get there faster." He knew, though, that these ships were not exactly fast, even in outer space. They were already at maximum safe acceleration. Still, Giegue was impatient and wanted to get there faster. Just then, an alarm blared over the bridge, causing some of the Final Starman servants that were waiting on Giegue and other VIPs to cover the audio receptors on their suits.

"What now?" he roared over the din.

The tactical officer and the communications officer went to their consoles to check on the reports, and soon, made theirs. "Sire, we have reports of intruders on the ship," the tactical officer called over to Giegue. "We currently have reports of the enemy splitting up into two groups. Security forces are engaging one of the enemy forces as we speak."

"Have they identified the intruders?" Giegue asked.

"Yes, sire," the communications officer answered. "They intruders are Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo. They are being assisted by one of our own kind."

Giegue's eyes flashed with fear. "Who?" he asked, dreading the answer.

The officer checked the reports and his face went blank. "Giygas," he answered blankly, fearful at what he had read. "It's your older brother." The PSI Alien could scarcely hide his fear.

"Any idea where they're going?"

"Yes, sire. The group of Ness and Poo are headed towards…" he checked the screen before continuing, "the bridge." He let that sink in for his two masters.

"What about Giygas?" Goog asked.

"We lost Giygas around the lab area. But they were close to the comm transceiver room, so they might be trying something there as well."

"Thank you," Goog replied. He then got up and left his station, heading for the exit.

"Dad, where are you going?" Giegue asked.

"To face my oldest son," he answered as the door slid closed behind him.

Giegue then waited on the bridge as the reports streamed in. He did not want to admit it, but he was actually scared, and his face was not hiding his fear very well at all.

Along the way to the comm transceiver, the humans and Giygas found a lone PSI Alien, which Giygas dispatched with relative ease. After a short battle, the PSI Alien slumped over onto the floor, killed by a blade of psychic lightning called Thunderblade used by Giygas. The trio then headed past the dead PSI Alien and walked down the corridor. Eventually, after walking down two more corridors where they only encountered a couple of Elite Mooks and Final Starmen, all of whom were dispatched with ease, they came to the communications room. Giygas stepped up to the door and entered the combination on the keypad. Once the light flashed green, the door opened.

Giygas burst through the door and started blasting the PSI Aliens and Final Starmen standing at their consoles, who had merely been staring at him as he entered, before they even thought to raise their defenses. By the time any of them had raised a shield of any kind or activated their combat senses, over half of the aliens in the room were already dead, most of them being PSI Aliens. The sole surviving PSI Alien then went into combat mode and charged Giygas. Paula and Jeff charged in and intercepted his attack with a blast of PSI Freeze and a few shots from Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol. The blast of PSI Freeze hit the PSI Alien and exploded, but the PSI Alien had raised a psychic shield over his body and escaped with minimal damage, while Jeff's Gaia Beam pistol was not really powerful enough to inflict any significant much damage to the PSI Alien, who had psychically increased his durability.

The PSI Alien and Final Starmen quickly retaliated by launching cones of PSI Freeze at Paula, Jeff, and Giygas. The cones of ice struck their bodies and detonated, but did not inflict any significant damage due to the Star Pendants protecting them as well as Giygas's own resistance to elemental PSI. Even Jeff was not fatally injured by the barrage. Still, he knew that he would need to use the rest of his Piggy Jelly to restore his health. Giygas, however, dealt with the problems posed by the PSI Alien and the Final Starmen by firing a blast of PSI Special their way. The green ball of psychic fired hit the PSI Alien directly and exploded, engulfing the PSI Alien, as well as the surviving Final Starmen, in a green sphere of psychic energy. The PSI Alien and the Final Starmen were disintegrated by the attack, while the consoles were completely undamaged by the blast.

After the skirmish, the group congregated around the comm transceiver console. "This is it," Giygas told them. The group approached the console and with the push of a button, activated a three-dimensional holographic display of the position and status of the entire fleet of a thousand ships. A wave of more than a hundred ships was already approaching the Earth, with another coming in hot on their heels. Giygas went up to the console while Paula and Jeff looked back at the exit. Jeff activated his Counter PSI Helmet and drew out his PSI Disruptor and Shield Killer, realizing that his Gaia Beam pistol was not all that effective against the PSI Aliens. He then handed his datapad to Giygas, who approached the transmitter console. When Giygas arrived at the console, he went to work.

Giygas plugged in the datapad and tapped a series of buttons on the console. After a minute of non-stop button pressing, Giygas told the others, "Alright, the virus is being uploaded to the rest of the fleet. The group watched the screen as several of the dots that were closest to Earth and had taken up positions over the planet disappeared. "Looks like the attack on Earth has begun," Giygas said, noting the disappearance of the ships, and blue dots that were appearing on the display of Earth. Alien writing was also appearing on the screen as more dots disappeared. "Looks like the exchange so far has been even," Giygas said, giving a blow-by-blow analysis of the battle. "Eight battleships and cruisers have been destroyed with twelve others suffering heavy damage. As for Earth, two more cities have been destroyed on the Asian continent, in what you call China, with six others suffering severe damage. Other ships are targeting areas in Europe, Asia, as well, near India and even in the Middle East, as well as portions of South America and North America. The fleet seems to just be going for direct extermination."

Giygas then checked the console once more. More dots were appearing on Russia, China, and in various places in Japan, the Middle East, and even in North and South America. Cities all across Europe, the United States, and Canada were now being attacked. More blue dots appeared on the screen.

"Hurry Giygas," Paula called out, looking back out over the display and seeing the destruction of more Earth cities, and not enough ships, since those that were being destroyed were quickly being replaced with the rest of the fleet. "I don't know how long Earth will be able to hold out against this assault!"

"Just a sec," Giygas called out to her. "I've gotta get the proper codes for each of the ships. This virus can be activated psychically." He then looked at the status display and the round rings that surrounded all of the blips on the display vanished, and the blips went red. "Alright, their shields are down." Just then, a large number of blips close to the Earth disappeared. The number of dots on the display of Earth that represented destroyed cities now grew at a much slower rate. Giygas then concentrated on the display and psychically identified each and every ship in the fleet. He proceeded to psychically transmit the self-destruct code to the fleet. He opened his eyes and they were glowing a deep blue. Paula and Jeff looked at the display in wonder as all of the blips were disappearing from the screen one by one, indicating the systematic destruction of the fleet. Paula extended her psychic senses outside the ship and could hear the psychic cries of the PSI Aliens and other aliens onboard the ships. Almost a thousand ships had exploded in the void of space, and those few that were out of range of Giygas's signal were annihilated by the Earth's remaining defenses. Paula glanced over at a viewscreen that depicted the devastation wrought by Giygas's virus. She watched as a bright orange-white light erupted from the center of ship after ship and proceeded outward, blowing apart said ships. One after another, each ship was annihilated. After a few minutes, the only capital ship left in the fleet was the Flagship. The few Fighter, Transport, and Gunship UFOs that survived the massacre made a last-ditch attack run on Earth, entering the atmosphere with the intent on killing as many humans as possible. These were intercepted by the fighters of the air forces of Earth and shot down before they managed to inflict any significant damage.

On the bridge of the ship, Giegue watched the viewscreen in front of him as the ships exploded as they began to assault the Earth. It took a moment for Giegue to realize what was happening. He transferred all of the reports coming in to the ship to his console and looked over each of them himself. Upon reading what was happening, he cried, "Nooooo!"

One of the bridge crew members, a young PSI Alien, turned to him and asked, "Sire, what's wrong?"

Giegue responded with a blast of lightning that instantly reduced the PSI Alien to a pile of ashes. The other PSI Aliens ignored the killing of their comrade, they had grown so used to it by now, and they concentrated on their other tasks. Then, one of the PSI Aliens looked over his reports and cried, "Sire, I'm receiving reports from the fleet. Their shields have fallen! They cannot raise them back up!" Giegue was not paying any attention, though. He had already known that. The PSI Alien continued to gaze at his console, and said in utter disbelief, "By our power…the fleet. It's being destroyed!" The eyes of the other PSI Aliens flashed and they then looked at their consoles. "Every ship is exploding!" the PSI Alien continued. That merely earned him a quick death via Giegue's lightning.

"In know that! I can see it up here! Stop boring me with useless details," Giegue roared.

"Sire, the rest of the fleet is now gone," another PSI Alien, this one a female, called out. "We're the only capital ship left. We are still fully functional, though."

"What of the fighters and transports?" the PSI Alien in the chair next to Giegue asked frantically.

"They are beginning their attack run on Earth and are entering the atmosphere now," the officer responded. "I am receiving reports. They are firing on cities, inflicting minor damage." There was a pause. "Many are now reporting that they are engaging Earth aerofighters. Many aerofighters are intercepting them." She then looked at the console as more and more fighters were going dark. "Sir, our UFOs are getting destroyed. They cannot hold out. They are reporting that their lines of escape have been cut off." Another pause came before she slumped back down into her chair, tears brimming at the edges of her eyes. "It is over. All of our forces have been lost. _We_ are all that is left."

Giegue gave a low grumble. This was bad. They had lost fleets before in their conquests and wars. They had lost numerous fleets during the Chaos Wars in their battles against the Magic Lords. The thing was that those battles were against Magic Lords, beings of magic that were stronger than anything else, save PSI Aliens. And even then, only the strongest of PSI Aliens could beat their strongest. The fleet had never been destroyed through treachery or by such a primitive and backwater planet like Earth, whose people could barely get a manned spacecraft to their moon or to the other inner planets. Another alarm rang and the Chief of Security went to his console, looked at its readout, and yelled, "Sire, more bad news!" Giegue was now tempted to kill his security chief. "Sir, the two humans, Ness and Poo, are closing in on the bridge!"

That was bad news, though he did not let it show on his face. He then turned to the PSI Alien in the seat next to his and calmly said, "Schweigh, take care of this for me."

The PSI Alien bowed to his master. "Yes, sire," he answered.

Giegue then left his chair and went to a door near the rear of the bridge. This led to a secret area of the ship where the darkest secret of the PSI Aliens was kept. It was a secret that if it was ever revealed, could truly spell the end of the PSI Alien species, especially now since the rest of the fleet had been destroyed. At the back of his mind, he knew that it was Giygas that had destroyed the rest of the fleet. As much as he wanted to kill his older brother, he knew that he should let his father take care of it. Giygas was far too powerful for him. Only his father had a chance of dealing with him, and only with his security escort. Giegue knew that the fight was coming, so he went back to prepare, and to call on Miridhel. He knew that he would want her assistance in the fight, and possibly for her to wait on his pleasure before the end. He entered the narrow corridor and the door closed behind him, leaving the bridge crew to deal with whatever came through onto the bridge.

Meanwhile, back in the comm center, after Giygas had destroyed the rest of the PSI Alien fleet, Giygas turned to Paula and Jeff and told them, "This is where we must part ways."

"Where are you going?" Paula asked. She had not wanted Giygas to leave them since he was so helpful in helping them deal with the PSI Aliens.

"There is something that I must take care of, and take care of now." He then looked back at the two of them, sensing their trepidation. "Don't worry, about me or yourselves. You're powerful enough to deal with members of my kind, and I know that I'll win my upcoming fight. With any luck, I'll be able to help you deal with my sadist of a younger brother."

After cheering them up, he disappeared from their sight, teleporting to another part of the ship. That left Paula and Jeff alone in the comm room. Jeff then pulled out the map of the ship and after studying it for a few seconds, said, "There's a lift that takes us to the Bridge level and only a corridor away from the bridge. With luck, we can get there soon, maybe even before Ness and Poo." With that hopeful thought, the two teens rushed out of the comm room and headed towards the nearest elevator, which they hoped would take them to the bridge level.

Meanwhile, Ness and Poo were engaging in the fight of their lives against an army of PSI Aliens, Final Starmen, and Elite Mooks. Ness had already used his exceedingly powerful PSI Rockin Omega, along with help from Poo in the form of PSI Starstorm Omega, to wipe out the two leading PSI Aliens and some of their escort before they managed to launch an attack or mount a proper defense, but having exhausted a large portion of his psychic energy, he did not want to risk using too much more energy. As such, Ness engaged the Final Starmen and Elite Mooks that they had met in the next corridor by tossing out a couple of Super Bombs. The bombs bounced among the enemy and exploded, killing or severely wounding a large number of Elite Mooks and some of the Final Starmen. Poo had finished the rest of the enemies by launching a volley of PSI Thunder at the Final Starmen. The Final Starmen and the surviving Elite Mook had retaliated, though, with a barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega and glares from their eerie eyes before going down. The Elite Mook had managed to diamondize Ness, but the Mook was quickly killed by a sword stab to the head. Poo then unleashed another stream of PSI Thunder on the Final Starmen. This stream was the fatal one. Lightning arced across the golden uniforms of the Final Starmen as they writhed before falling to the ground, either unconscious or dead. When the fight was over, Poo went over to Ness and placed a Secret Herb on his diamondized form. The herb touched the diamondized Ness and phased into it. As soon as the herb disappeared, Ness returned to normal, a human child replacing the diamond statue that had previously been standing there.

Once Ness was healed, the two continued on their way towards the bridge. On the way, they encountered another PSI Alien, which prompted Poo to use an Ultra Bomb, hoping to conserve psychic energy. The bomb struck the PSI Alien in the chest and immediately exploded, throwing the alien backwards. The alien fell to the floor and skidded across the metal ground for a few feet before coming to a halt. The PSI Alien was far from beaten, though, and he rose to engage the children once more. Before the PSI Alien could launch an attack, though, Ness joined in on the fight and used Hypnosis against the PSI Alien, hoping that he was vulnerable to the technique. He did not want to waste any psychic energy or use up any more of their limited munitions against the security forces unless he absolutely had no other choice. As it turned out, this PSI Alien was vulnerable to the technique and after making eye contact with Ness, was put in a deep slumber. The PSI Alien fell to the floor and began to snore, an obvious sign that he was asleep. Poo took no chances, though, and charged the PSI Alien at full speed, generating an electrical current around his blade. He arrived at the sleeping PSI Alien and thrust his blade through the alien's skull. The rhythmic rising and falling of the alien's chest, as well as his snoring, ceased immediately. Blue alien blood leaked from the wound as Poo withdrew his blade from the alien's head. Poo, however, was not satisfied. "A waste of a perfect Ultra Bomb," he berated himself, figuring that the bomb had been unnecessary since Ness's Hypnosis was still effective against the PSI Alien. Ness made no gestures or statements of agreement or disagreement. "You should take the lead here, Ness," Poo told him. Ness nodded. "Your Hypnosis ability can allow us to attack them directly without having to waste a great deal of psychic energy."

Ness nodded in affirmation. Before moving on, he stooped down to pick up an unused PSI Alien version of a Super Bomb, knowing that having a non-psychic weapon besides his bat would be instrumental and since he did not want to waste any of his current weapons in the future. He then clipped the bomb to his ammunition belt. He then walked on forward, taking the lead. He knew, though, that it was luck that his Hypnosis was as effective against the PSI Alien as it had been. He did not know if he would be so fortunate with the next PSI Alien that he faced. His fortune would be tested when he came to the door leading to the bridge of the ship. He came upon another PSI Alien security officer. This PSI Alien was wearing a uniform similar to Starman Supers, minus the visors, and extended his hands towards the heroes. Cones of fire erupted from his hands and reached out to touch the heroes, burning them with their touch. Fortunately, the Star Pendant and the Diadem of Kings worn by the two psychics protected them from the fire attacks. However, Poo suffered more damage from the fire than Ness despite his own natural resistance to fire, due to Ness's Star Pendant's greater protection offered against Fire, Flash, Freezing, and Paralysis. As such, Ness suffered very little damage and was able to use Hypnosis Omega to try to put the PSI Alien to sleep. Unfortunately, this PSI Alien was completely immune to Hypnosis, and as such, was not put to sleep by the attack. The PSI Alien retaliated with a barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega. Poo and Ness said a quick prayer as the PSI Alien powered his attack, and Ness proceeded to power a PSI Rockin Omega of his own to counter it. Ness was only able to power his Rockin Omega to its Gamma level before the PSI Alien unleashed his attack against the human psychics. Poo quickly powered his own Starstorm Omega attack and unleashed dozens of blue orbs against the PSI Alien's green orbs. The orbs collided in midair and exploded upon impact. The explosions engulfed several of the other stars, causing them to detonate prematurely, but a few of the PSI Alien's stars from the Starstorm still managed to get through and strike the heroes. However, the two humans were able to withstand the strikes of a few stars. Still, they emerged from the attack looking pretty ragged. Their bodies were smoking and battered, but unbowed. And Ness had finished powering his PSI Rockin Omega.

In the ensuing counterattack, Poo went first, launching a stream of PSI Thunder Omega at the alien. His psychic counter shield was ineffective in blocking the PSI Thunder Omega, the lightning phasing through the shield as if it was not even there. The lightning also collapsed said shield and struck the PSI Alien directly, inflicting minimal damage. But the lightning was not the primary attack. As soon as Poo had collapsed the shield of the PSI Alien, Ness unleashed his scarlet ball of PSI Rockin Omega upon the alien psychic. Carefully controlling the ball so that it would not annihilate the ship prematurely, and them with it, the scarlet ball of pulsing psychic energy struck the PSI Alien and exploded, engulfing him in a red sphere that was akin to a supernova. The attack completely vaporized the PSI Alien, leaving nothing but subatomic particles behind when the ball finally dissipated.

Once the fight was over, Ness and Poo went over to the door that led to the bridge. Poo approached the door and extended his psychic senses. He sensed the presence of six PSI Aliens onboard. He then went over to tell Ness, "Ness, there's six of them…at least. Two more are near the door."

Ness quickly unwrapped one of his Special Cakes and devoured the cake. He felt his psychic power replenish in its entirety upon finishing the cake. He had not wanted to take any chances about his power potentially giving out in the upcoming battle. Once he was finished, he joined Poo near the door. He took in a deep breath. This would be the toughest battle he had onboard the entire ship. He exhaled and then drew out the PSI Alien version of the Super Bomb that he had plundered from the corpse of a PSI Alien and attached it to the door. He pushed the activation stud and stood away from the door a ways down the hall with Poo. The timer counted down until it reached zero. When the timer reached zero, the bomb exploded, blowing the door apart and into the bridge. Poo then charged out and into the doorway, already powering a blast of PSI Thunder Omega. He unleashed the blast on two PSI Aliens that were already charging towards the door, making sure to deplete any physical or psychic shields or counters that they had been raised, while simultaneously sweeping his electrified blade across the floor, beheading the two stunned PSI Aliens that had been knocked to the floor by the explosion. Lightning arced across the bodies of the two charging PSI Aliens as they were frozen in their tracks. Ness quickly entered as well and used Hypnosis Omega on the PSI Aliens on the bridge, hoping that it would at least put some of the PSI Aliens to sleep and make this battle easier. It managed to put the PSI Aliens that Poo had struck with his PSI Thunder to sleep. Still, the duo knew that the four still conscious PSI Aliens would be quite difficult to defeat.

The PSI Aliens began the battle by trying to use Ness's own attack against him. They each cast Hypnosis on the two teens, hoping to put them to sleep. However, the teens Goddess Band and Bracer of Kings offered strong protection against the sleep attacks, so Ness and Poo were able to resist the attacks and respond with attacks of their own. Ness quickly went over to the sleeping PSI Aliens and bashed them in the head repeatedly in order to neutralize their threat and make sure that they never woke up. Poo, meanwhile, went to engage the other PSI Aliens on the bridge. He unleashed his PSI Thunder on the aliens in order to collapse any defensive shielding that the aliens may have erected over themselves. These PSI Aliens, however, had a strong resistance to lightning so aside from the loss of their shields and much damage at all. The aliens soon retaliated by unleashing a blast of PSI Starstorm Omega against Poo, as well as Ness, who was finishing off their sleeping comrades. They did not care that their own injured comrades would be caught in the path of the attack and killed; they just wanted to finish off Ness and Poo. Green stars formed around their bodies and they quickly unleashed their fury against the teens.

Without the presence of Paula to raise a psychic shield or counter shield over them, Poo and Ness had to resort to using Lifeup Omega on themselves in order to survive the volley. While Ness used Lifeup Omega, Poo powered his own PSI Starstorm Omega barrage in order to try to counter the PSI Aliens' attacks. He knew that he would not manage to take out anything anywhere close to all the stars, but if he could limit the number of stars that directly hit the two of them, then they would not have to constantly use Lifeup on themselves in order to survive. Poo's blue stars rocketed towards the green stars of the PSI Aliens and collided with them. Several explosions rang out in the air, a result of the collisions between the stars from the barrages of the two parties. Still, there were four barrages coming at the humans, while only Poo was able to launch an attack since Ness could not use both offensive PSI and Lifeup at the same time. Still, Ness and Poo managed to the first wave of stars without being killed. Each star that hit them knocked them backwards and exploded, but as soon as their flesh began to burn, it was healed due to Lifeup. Ness and Poo both knew, though, that they could not afford to do this very often or they would shorten their own lives. Eventually, the barrage ended, and the teens were still alive, but battered in the process. Still, the psychic shields around the PSI Aliens had collapsed. Ness knew that this was his perfect chance.

Ness quickly powered a blast of PSI Rockin Omega, being careful to craft the ball of psychic energy so that it only damaged the PSI Aliens that were preparing their next barrage of Starstorm Omega. As the green orbs formed around their bodies again, Ness's ball formed. Poo provided cover for Ness, using Lifeup Gamma on him in order to restore Ness to full health so that he would not be killed should the PSI Aliens unleash their attacks first. Fortunately, Ness was able to power his ball of PSI Rockin Omega before the PSI Aliens managed to power their own attacks fully. When it was finished powering up, he unleashed the ball of Rockin against the PSI Aliens. The PSI Aliens, seeing the scarlet grapefruit-sized ball of psychic energy coming towards them decided that it was better to launch their attacks now, rather than waiting for later, and they propelled the stars that they had formed towards Ness. Poo also powered a barrage of Starstorm Omega barrage to counter their own. While the two Starstorm barrages rocketed towards each other and collided in midair, Ness's Rockin continued towards the PSI Aliens. It hit one of the PSI Aliens squarely in the chest and detonated, immediately vaporizing the PSI Alien where he stood. The others tried to raise psychic shields, but even their own shields were not sufficient to absorb or deflect Ness's energy. The PSI Aliens were each consumed by the expanding ball of psychic energy and when it finally dissipated a few seconds after the initial detonation, the PSI Aliens were nothing but dust.

Once the PSI Aliens had been dealt with, Ness knelt down on one knee. Poo, who had been winded by using two Starstorm Omega barrages in rapid succession while also using Lifeup Gamma, went over to Ness, albeit breathing heavily, and asked, "Are you alright?"

Ness, who had used a great deal of psychic energy himself, replied, "Yeah, I'm alright." He then slowly stood up, wobbling for a few seconds before managing to steady himself. "I'm just winded from using so much psychic power in rapid succession."

"Don't overdo it too much," Poo advised. "Even when your psychic energy is restored, your mind itself can still be fatigued."

"I know," Ness nodded in agreement, for that was exactly what he was feeling at the moment.

Poo then took out his sole remaining Brain Food Lunch and sat down to eat it. He had sustained some injuries during the battle and he did not want to fight Giegue while still hurt. He had actually expected to fight with Giegue on the bridge, but evidently, the PSI Alien leader was not present. Ness considered whether or not he would eat his one of his Brain Food Dinners. He had four of them left, as well as three Special Cakes for restoring only psychic energy, but he knew that it would not be wise to waste such items at the moment. He decided to wait and only use the items when he really needed to.

After a minute, they rose to search for Giegue when Paula and Jeff came storming in, weapons drawn. Both teens looked like they had gone through a war zone to get there. When the two teens saw Ness and Poo, they gave strained smiles in greeting, all while panting. Poo took one look at them and asked, "Are you two alright?"

They both nodded. "Yeah, we are now," Paula replied, breathing heavily. "We had to come through an army to get here alive." Paula had been forced to use one of her two remaining Super Bombs, a Life Up Cream, and a Special Cake in order to get out of the battle alive while Jeff had used up one of his Life Up Creams during the push towards the bridge. "Are you guys alright?"

Ness and Poo nodded. Ness noticed that Giygas was not with them. "I take it Giygas has gone to search for his father," Ness commented.

Paula and Jeff nodded. "Yeah. He left us after uploading the virus to the fleet," Jeff told him. "The Flagship's all that's left of the PSI Alien fleet."

"Good," Poo said, walking over to Paula and Jeff. Ness quickly joined him. After a few moments, the group was ready to proceed. "Okay guys," Ness said in a serious and calm voice. "Let's finish this." Turning to Paula, he asked, "Can you find Giegue?"

Paula nodded. Her eyes began to glow as she extended her telepathic senses throughout the ship. She was surprised when she almost instantly found and identified him. He's in a section of the ship called the 'Secret Core'," she said, her voice ringing out clearly over the bridge. "The corridor that leads to the Secret Core is in the rear of the bridge."

The teens then went over to the rearmost door of the bridge, the one that they had not used to enter the bridge, and proceeded to make their way through the door. They then found themselves in a long corridor that undoubtedly led to the Secret Core. The teens, especially Ness, did not like the sound of the Secret Core, but he did not let that dampen his spirits. Without speaking a word, the teens proceeded down the corridor and towards their confrontation with Giegue. Ness led the way, followed by Paula, then Jeff, and finally Poo, who not only brought up the rear, but also looked out behind the party to make sure that there were no PSI Aliens that followed them and tried to ambush them.

In another part of the ship, a trail of dead PSI Alien, Final Starman, Elite Mook, and High Star Elf bodies lined the corridors that led to Goog's Sanctum. Goog had extended his telepathic senses and had heard the psychic cries of all of those that had faced off against Giygas, only to perish. Goog had gone to a locker and put on his armored suit. The suit was powered by thoughts and moved just as a normal power-armored suit would. The only difference was that this suit also had a psychic shield built in and allowed Goog to utilize multiple PSI at the same time. He had constructed it just in case his either of his sons had ever truly gone rogue. He could sense Giygas approaching. Beads of sweat formed at his brow. He knew that in a fair fight, he was no match for his son. Both before his son had been used as the focus of the gestalt Universal Cosmic Destroyer Giygas entity, and after, his son had been superior to him, and to all other PSI Aliens for that matter. Even as a child, he was a match for full-grown adults. Goog could only hope that this suit would be enough to overcome Giygas's obvious advantages.

The door that led to the sanctum shattered as it was blown inward by an attack of some sort. The body of one of Goog's Elite Guards, as well as pieces of another body, which had also likely been one of Goog's Elite Guards, but was too mangled and burned to be able to identify even as a PSI Alien, flew through the destroyed door, and had likely been the cause of the door's destruction. Goog turned around and saw his son standing in the doorway, his eyes glowing an emerald green. "Giygas," Goog said in a dark tone.

"Father," Giygas answered, echoing his father's tone.

"So we meet again, my son," Goog said with a mixture of sadness and bitterness. He looked down at the remains of two of his Elite Guards. He looked down the corridor and saw the bodies of at least eight PSI Aliens and countless servant species of the PSI Aliens. "I take it that your betrayal is for real this time."

Giygas gave a nod. Goog merely glowered at him.

"I suspected as much." He then walked towards Giygas, his suit emitting hisses whines as he walked towards his son. "Why did you do it Giygas? Why did you betray your people?"

"Because our people are evil," Giygas responded in a serious tone. "And the humans showed me mercy…despite everything I did and threatened to do to them. They showed themselves as being worthy of surviving, whereas our people have not."

"You know that this action will eventually result in your death, regardless of what you do," Goog warned.

Giygas gave a relaxed and content smile. "Yes, Father. I know." Giygas then narrowed his gaze on his father. "There is nothing further to discuss, Father. I will protect the Earth with my life."

"Then you shall die!" Goog screamed as he charged Giygas. The final battle between father and son had begun.

Meanwhile, the Chosen Four soon came to the end of the long corridor that they had traveled down. The corridor had been quite plain, but as they progressed, golden statues lined the walls to their right and left. The statues were of PSI Aliens, each of them looking almost identical to the other, but the alien writing on the golden plates underneath the statues and markers indicated that the statues were not of the same being. Also, some of the statues seemed to have feminine physical features, while others were clearly more masculine. As the party progressed, the group began to sense a dark presence getting closer and closer as they moved down the dark corridor. As they proceeded down the corridor, the sensation grew in intensity. Paula almost recoiled at the sensation, since her telepathic powers amplified the sensation. "We're getting close to him," Paula told the others. "But I don't think he's alone."

"Indeed I'm not," a voice said from the darkness. Light then sprang into existence all around the Chosen Four. The light came on so suddenly that they recoiled and closed their eyes a bit. Only Paula's quick thinking prevented the group from being annihilated by a combined psychic assault from several enemy Starstorm barrages. Paula had raised a PSI Shield Sigma over the party. Her psychic shield flared as the dozens of green energy orbs splashed against the shield, causing it to strain with each hit. Still, the shield managed to hold and the psychic assault was fully repulsed. After their eyes had gotten acclimated to the light, the teens focused their gaze on the party in front of them. One regal looking PSI Alien stood clad in a golden armored suit, revealing only his milky-white head. The armor was highly stylized and was heavily ornamented. The party managed to make out energy cannons on each arm and a belt that housed four round devices that the group took to be bombs, likely either Super Bombs or Ultra Bombs of some sort, and two cylindrical objects. Paula and Poo also sensed that the suit had its own shielding as well, which could be augmented by the PSI Alien's psychic powers as well. Ness and the others believed this PSI Alien to be the strongest member of the party.

Standing next to the PSI Alien was a beautiful humanoid woman dressed in a light, thin sky-blue sleeveless gown whose skirt fell to her ankles. She looked human to the teens, save for her pointed ears. They figured that she was some sort of elf. Her bare arms and neck showed no signs of jewelry or metallic decorations that would indicate a shield generator of any sort, or weapons. Still, the teens were not going to take any chances, so they figured that she at the very least had a shield of some sort already deployed. She quickly sighted the two boys and when she did so, she fluttered her eyelashes and stood in a seductive pose, which was meant to distract the teens, though it only brought down upon her a disapproving glare from Giegue, and had no effect on the teens. Standing behind the two were four other PSI Aliens. These aliens wore no armor, though. They, too, were without any jewelry or accoutrements. It seemed as if only Giegue was allowed to have any special suits or weapons. Still, the teens did not know whether to view this as a good sign or a bad sign. After all, Giygas was Giegue's older brother and he had not had any accoutrements save for his twin beam swords. Still, the suit of armor could also be because Giegue was significantly weaker than Giygas. The teens were going to find out quickly if that was the case. Ness and the others drew their weapons and prepared for battle. This prompted Giegue to laugh. "So, the humans that managed to defeat my big brother finally appear before me." Giegue then laughed again and focused his gaze on Paula. "And it appears as if they've got a blond bombshell among them." Turning to Miridhel, he chided, "You'd better be careful Miridhel, babe. That human girl looks awfully pretty. Maybe she could also be my…" but his phrase was cut off by a combined PSI Thunder assault by both Paula and Poo. The lightning struck splashed across the shields that protected the armor. Still, the PSI Thunder attacks that they had used were not at their Omega levels, so Giegue had not managed to glean the full power of Paula and Poo's attacks, yet. Giegue laughed again.

"What was that supposed to be; an attack?" Giegue mocked. Paula and Poo gritted their teeth, half in annoyance over his laugh, half as part of an act, indicating that they had been relying on their attacks to penetrate Giegue's shield. Giegue, meanwhile, continued to laugh. "I feel really sorry for you four fools, and that idiot big brother of mine. You know that human witch, Maria, caused him to get all soft and sentimental on you and your people. Well, anyway, that's not my problem right now. All I've gotta deal with is you."

"Bring it on," Ness replied with a confident grin as his eyes started to glow. He was eager to face down Giegue, especially since he had insulted Maria. The eyes of the other psychic teens started to glow as well. Poo pointed his sword at Giegue's face, and fire formed in Paula's hand. Jeff also drew out his Shield Killer and PSI Disruptor. He also activated his Counter PSI Helmet in order to seal the psychic abilities of the PSI Aliens, and hopefully, if they were lucky, Giegue's powers as well.

Giegue merely laughed at Ness's confidence and said. "Oh, I'll bring it alright. And that's when you're gonna die. Now die!" And with that, Giegue and the others charged towards the Chosen Four, unclipping two cylinders from the side of his armor and holding them in the air. The battle against Giegue had begun.


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29:

Giegue opened the battle by charging towards the four human teens while his Elite Guard supported him by using Offense Up Omega, Defense Up Omega, Speed Up Omega, and PSI Up Omega. Despite his previous boasting, he did not feel confident in his ability to defeat the four teens, even with the assistance of his Elite Guard and Miridhel, at his base power level. In addition, Miridhel supported him by singing a Song of Life in her own native language. The song, would allow Giegue to regenerate and heal from injuries and cure poisoning, paralysis, or any other status condition instantly for as long as the song's power was in effect. With his increased speed, he arrived at the teens. During the initial preparations, however, Paula had secretly used Offense Up Omega and Defense Up Omega on herself and the others, so that they would be able to fight Giegue should he try to engage them in close combat. He raised the two cylinders above his head and pressed a button on the sides of the cylinders. Two energy blades sprung forth from the cylinders and he tried to bring the blades of his beam swords down upon the teens. Despite his speed increase, however, the teens were faster on the draw. Ness raised a Shield Omega over the party, which surprisingly did not cancel out the PSI Shield Sigma that Paula had raised in order to protect against the Starstorm attacks launched by the PSI Aliens. Giegue brought down his blades onto the shield over the party. The shield flared when the two blades made contact, but the shield managed to repulse the blades.

Ness and Poo then drew out their own weapons and took some swings at Giegue. Poo was careful to charge his sword with PSI Thunder so that the beam swords of Giegue did not cut through the metal of his Sword of Kings. Ness also psychically charged his own Legendary Bat so that the same thing would not happen to his bat. Giegue's improved speed and reflexes, which were also improved with Speed Up, allowed him to react to the sword and bat swings of Poo and Ness and intercept them with his blades. Still, both Ness and Poo had superior skills, which they put on display in the following exchange of blows. Giegue quickly pulled his blades in and went to stab both Ness and Poo, who deftly dodged his stabs without having to parry the attacks. They did not go on the offensive, though. They just waited for Giegue to exhaust himself trying to hit them, or to make a mistake and allow them an opening for a safe strike. Ness and Poo juked and jived around the stabs and swipes made by Giegue, until he left himself open to a strike from both of them. Poo quickly stabbed Giegue in the lower right section of his abdomen, in an area that would not have been fatal for humans, but was for a PSI Alien. The electrified sword managed to phase through the armor's shields and strike the armor uncontested. The sword bit through the armor of Giegue, and proceeded on through his flesh. The tip of the blade emerged from the other side of Giegue and he partially slumped forward, just as Ness swung with all of his might at his head. Giegue raised his left arm in order to protect his head from the attack, but Ness's increased strength meant that his swing was powerful enough to break Giegue's arm in multiple places, even through the armor, when the bat struck. The strike of the bat destroyed the energy cannon on Giegue's left arm, the barrel collapsing inward as Ness's bat struck it. Giegue cried out in pain as his arm was broken by the impact. Poo quickly withdrew his blade and went to stab him again.

Giegue teleported away from the stab, and reappeared back near Miridhel and the others. "Where the hell was my support back there?" he cried, in between racking cries of pain. However, the pain was being dulled by the effects of Miridhel's Song of Life that she had sang for him earlier. The wound was slowly closing and his arm was healing slowly. It was too slow for Giegue, though, who screamed, "Miri, sing a Song of Healing now!"

Miridhel sang a Song of Healing for Giegue as the other PSI Aliens quickly went in to attack Ness and the others and to cover Giegue while Miridhel healed him, fearing Giegue's wrath. The PSI Aliens stepped out in front of Giegue and Miridhel powered up a series of PSI Starstorm Omega attacks, not realizing that Jeff had already drawn his Shield Killer. He targeted one of the PSI Aliens and fired a pulse at him, stripping the Alien of his shield. Poo also fired a volley of PSI Thunder at the remaining PSI Aliens in the hopes of depleting their shields as well, while Paula upgraded the PSI Shield Sigma to a PSI Shield Omega. The PSI Aliens were unable to evade Poo's blast of PSI Thunder Omega and each of the PSI Aliens that still had psychic counter shields, save for Giegue, had lost them. Ness stood by, holding a ball of PSI Rockin that he had just powered up in his hand, waiting for the right moment to strike. He did not want to hit the PSI Aliens while they had their shields up, but he did not want to give them any breathing room after Poo and Jeff had stripped them of their shields. He knew that it would likely take more than a PSI Rockin Gamma and a reflected PSI Starstorm Omega to kill the PSI Aliens, though. He merely hoped that the combination of attacks would be enough to defeat them.

The PSI Aliens then unleashed their barrages of PSI Starstorm Omega upon the four heroes. Dozens of green orbs rained down upon them, only to be stopped a few feet away from the heroes. An orange hue covered the heroes with each impact, as the stars were frozen for a few seconds, and then reflected back to the now unprotected PSI Aliens. The PSI Aliens, quickly realizing that their own attack was coming back at them, steeled themselves for the assault, curling their arms over their heads and chests to protect themselves while the rain of stars fell among them and exploded. The explosions created small green spheres of psychic energy, while the direct hits forced the PSI Aliens backwards, sometimes into the blasts of other stars. Ness then unleashed his ball of PSI Rockin Gamma towards the PSI Aliens. Scarlet ball of psychic energy fell among the defending PSI Aliens and exploded, engulfing the entire party in a red sphere of psychic energy. The attack was far from finished, though.

Jeff then added some of his own weaponry to the attack when he drew out one of his Advanced Multi Bottle Rockets and placed it on the ground. After lighting the fuse, he stepped away as the rocket was launched into the air. Each of the warheads then split apart at the apex of its flight and rained down on the PSI Aliens. Since they were busy erecting psychic shields in order to protect themselves from the full brunt of Ness's attack, they were unable to protect themselves from the warheads of the Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket. The warheads fell onto the four PSI Aliens, five warheads for each alien, and exploded, engulfing them in spheres of flame and clouds of smoke. However, that was not all. The attack had disrupted their raising of their psychic shields, so their shields were only at the Alpha level, and only had one layer. As such, they were still vulnerable to psychic attacks, which Paula inflicted on them. She powered a massive tidal wave of PSI Torrent Omega and unleashed it upon the stricken PSI Aliens. The wave crashed down upon the reeling PSI Aliens and sent them into the wall. The force was so great that it managed to collect both Giegue and Miridhel in its wake. The PSI Aliens were eventually deposited into the wall at the end of the corridor.

After the wave had subsided, Giegue groaned and slowly rose. He pushed one of the PSI Aliens that had managed to land on top of him off of him as he rose. The PSI Alien tumbled to the floor and ceased to move. He was dead. Giegue then looked around and found that the other PSI Aliens had ceased their movements. He telepathically scanned them, only to find that they, too, were dead. He swore. "Well this sucks," he said, grumbling about the uselessness of his Elite Guard. "Ah well, I should have expected as much. With all the strong ones having been put into the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, I should've figured that we'd be stuck with the weaklings." He then kicked the corpse of one of the dead PSI Aliens out of his path as he went over to check on Miridhel. He then looked over at Miridhel and found that she was struggling to rise as well, but eventually, rise she did. "Figures that _she'd_ survive," he muttered. He then turned to face the Chosen Four.

"Well, it seems as if you're definitely powerful," he proclaimed. "But your luck has run out." He then looked back at Miridhel and boomed, "Hey Miri, come over and assist me here, witch."

Miridhel did as she was told and hurried over to Giegue. It was then that Paula called out to her, asking, "Why do you put up with him? Let us help you," she offered, extending her hand. "We can beat Giegue and save you."

Much to Paula's surprise, Miridhel burst out into a grin. She began to giggle for a few seconds before throwing her head back and cackling maniacally, her face a mask of what looked to be insanity. "Help me? HELP ME? What sort of fool are you?" Miridhel cackled. "I'm with Giegue of my own free will. I'd never join idiots like you!"

"Idiots?" Poo blurted. "Who's the pleasure slave here? Who's the one suffering constant abuse at the hands of Giegue?" Poo asked harshly. "No one wears a cocktail dress into the middle of a battle if they want to live! Accept Paula's offer of help. Please!"

Miridhel merely continued to laugh. "Why? I like what I am. On my world, I was a companion, a fancy prostitute, thief, murderess, and had a death sentence for my crimes. I lied, cheated, stole, blackmailed, and murdered for a living. I was sentenced to die on my world. But when the PSI Lords came, they offered me a place on the Flagship as Giegue's servant if I did as they requested during the invasion. All they asked from me was information on my world's defenses, which I provided, and in return they made me a personal servant of Giegue, and gave me a position where I would not be killed. With the PSI Lords, I can live as I wish, and all it cost me was the rest of my species, those that did not join with the PSI Lords, that is."

"As Giegue's personal slave?" Ness asked in a low, cold voice. His compassion for the young woman was quickly replaced with disgust, as was Poo's. Even Paula, who was normally quite compassionate, felt all compassion and sympathy for the High Star Elf leave her. "You are a fool." And that was all Ness had to say on the subject.

Miridhel then attempted to kill the heroes quickly by singing a Song of Death in her own language and projecting its power onto the heroes. However, since her Song of Death was magical, it was easy to confuse. When Paula heard the song being sung she immediately telepathically invaded Miridhel's mind, identified the purpose of the song and its words, translating them into English, and used her as the focus, rather than the Chosen Four. When Miridhel stopped singing, the spell was complete, only she had cast it on herself rather than the Chosen Four. She emitted a piercing cry of utter agony as she felt unbelievable pain as the effects of the song tore at her mind and soul. Paula and Poo quickly finished off the High Star Elf with a blast of PSI Thunder Gamma, each. Lightning erupted from the fingers of the human psychics and lashed out at Miridhel. Miridhel continued to cry out as lightning arced across her body, leaving massive scars and burn lines across her arms, legs, chest, and face. She fell to the floor, weakly turning to Giegue, begging, "Help me, my lord. Please!" in between cries as she struggled to reach him.

"Why?" Giegue asked nonchalantly as he telekinetically picked her up and propelled her towards Ness and the others. She flew through the air towards the heroes, causing them to scatter to avoid her incoming body. She then landed on the floor and skidded to a halt, the sickening crack of bones was heard as she hit her head on the floor. After she came to a stop, twitching, though the heroes did not know if she was still alive, or her twitching was merely a result of her death throes. Paula made certain that the High Star Elf would never rise again by blasting her with a ball of PSI Fire. The ball of PSI Fire struck the body and exploded, engulfing it in flames. After a few seconds, Miridhel had been reduced to ashes. Now, the teens focused on Giegue, who looked a little winded from the hit he sustained from the tidal wave of PSI Torrent Omega that Paula had unleashed his party. Giegue took one look at the teens and laughed. "So, it looks like it's just me, now," he shrugged. "Oh well, I knew it would turn out like this." With that, he began to power a psychic attack. The battle against Giegue in earnest had begun.

In the burned out husk of a room that was Goog's Sanctum, father and son battled each other for the fate of an alien race that both had known for decades. Goog flew through the air across the room and into the wall, knocking down and breaking a magnificent picture of Giegue as he collided with the wall, and fell to the floor. Giygas ran towards his father, but Goog stretched out his arms and a wave of telekinetic energy sent Giygas hurtling through the air. Giygas used his own telekinesis to brace himself and land on his feet, skidding only a few feet before coming to a stop. A bolt of lightning then came directly at Giygas from his father, but splashed harmlessly against his shield. Goog gritted his teeth. Nothing was working against his son. He had tried his PSI Death, PSI Thunder, and every other elemental psychic attack that he had known against his son. He had yet to try any combination PSI, though. Still, he doubted that it would work. Still, it was better than nothing.

He powered a blast of PSI Death Omega in his right hand, while using his armored suit's ability to power a blast of PSI Thunder in his left. Goog's PSI Death was a violet and black ball of psychic energy similar to Giygas's PSI Special and Ness's PSI Rockin, though it was not as powerful as either of the aforementioned attacks, merely rivaling Starstorm in power, which made it impractical save for its shield-penetrating properties. He unleashed the attacks simultaneously against his son, who was running forward towards him. Both the lightning and the globe of PSI Death struck Giygas simultaneously. The lightning splashed against his shield, and the globe of Death hit his shields, causing them to flare, before exploding and engulfing Giygas in a black sphere of psychic energy. Goog looked into the globe of Death and said in a sad and bitter tone, "You left me no choice, my son."

After a couple of seconds, a reply came from the center of the vanishing sphere, "There is always a choice, Father." The sphere of Death vanished and there stood Giygas, completely unharmed. Goog could not hide his shock as his eyes went wide and his mouth hung open.

"But how?" Goog stammered. "How could you survive that? Even if the lightning couldn't phase through your shields, it should have at least damaged them. And the Death…you should have at least taken _some_ damage."

"You underestimate me, Father," Giygas chastised. "I have learned some new techniques during my stays on Earth."

Giygas quickly demonstrated one of his new powers when he cried, "Shield Off!" Immediately, the psychic counter shield that Goog had raised while Giygas was talking vanished. He sensed the shield vanish, and then Giygas cried, "PSI Block!"

Goog sneered at Giygas. "You think that a weak technique like that will have any effect on me?" Goog then went to show Giygas that now _he_ was the one who was underestimating his opponent when he tried to use PSI Thunderbomb Omega on Giygas. He attempted to focus his psychic power into his hands and propel the resultant bomb of electricity towards Giygas. The bomb would have exploded and engulfed Giygas in a sphere of electricity that should have collapsed Giygas's weakened shields. However, nothing happened. No lightning formed in Goog's hands at all. Goog tried to use the attack again. Again, nothing happened. Seeing that he was getting nowhere using Thunderbomb, he decided to use a basic PSI Fire Omega on Giygas. Again, nothing happened. His eyes widened in fear as he realized that he could no longer use his psychic attacks. He backed away from Giygas, who stood stock still, and extended his arms towards Giygas, attempting to push him back with a wave of telekinetic energy. Giygas did not move, and his shields did not flare either. Not only that, but Goog could sense nothing at all. What had happened to him? "What have you done to me?" Goog asked, his eyes wide in both terror and hate.

"I have blocked the use of your psychic powers," Giygas responded. "With your powers blocked and your armor's shield gone, this fight is over."

Goog then growled. "This fight is not over yet!" he cried. "This fight won't end until you're dead!" Goog then drew out a cylindrical hilt from his armor's waist. He ignited the blade and a green blade of energy sprang forth. "I'm not out of this yet, my son!"

Giygas merely shrugged. "Yes, Father. You are." Goog paid no attention to Giygas's statement as he charged straight for his son. He held his blade high in the air. Giygas made no attempt to avoid the blade's swing. The blade came down on Giygas's shield and the shield flared as it resisted Goog's energy blade. Giygas's eyes flashed green for an instant and the hilt of the blade disintegrated. The energy blade disappeared and Goog was now left without a weapon. Afterwards, Goog was sent flying through the air. He crashed into the wall relatively softly and then slid down to the floor. Giygas neared Goog as he attempted to use his psychic powers, hoping that the blocks had worn off. Unfortunately, for him, they had not. Things were getting desperate for him, for he did not have anything in his current arsenal that could hurt Giygas as long as Giygas kept his shield up. Still, he would not surrender to his son. He was still alive, and he would not give up until he was killed. To that end, he rose from the floor and charged Giygas once more.

Meanwhile, back in the corridor that led to the Secret Core, Giegue did his best to fend off the Chosen Four. So far, however, he was having little success. His first psychic attack, a PSI Firebomb Omega, had struck a psychic counter shield that had been erected by Paula and was reflected right back at him. The PSI Firebomb Omega hit him and detonated, engulfing him in a sphere of flames. This served to collapse the already weakened psychic shield that Giegue had erected over himself during the fight. Next, Ness, Poo, and Jeff launched a combination attack on Giegue. First, Ness powered a ball of PSI Rockin while Poo formed dozens of blue orbs around him and Jeff placed an Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket on the ground. Jeff lit the fuse and backed away as he identified Giegue as the only target for the rocket and programmed the information into his Counter PSI Helmet, which was then transmitted to the Rocket. While they had set up their attacks, Giegue, knowing that he had no chance of repulsing all four of their attacks, raised a psychic counter shield over himself, hoping to reflect Ness and Poo's attacks. He figured that he could survive the Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket of Jeff. Paula, however, had other plans.

Paula stepped out in front of the group and fired a stream of PSI Thunder Omega at Giegue from her fingertips. Lightning erupted from her fingers and streaked towards Giegue. Giegue knew the instant she powered the PSI Thunder that his plans were about to come crashing down. He could not hold against all four enemies, and his own normal psychic shielding and countering was not like his older brother, Giygas's. His was similar to a Starman's. It was unable to block PSI Thunder. Paula's stream of lightning phased right through the shield, collapsing it in the process, and struck Giegue directly. The one good thing for Giegue was the fact that he was strong against elemental PSI. That was of little comfort as the rest of the Chosen Four's attacks were either not PSI, or were non-elemental PSI, which he had no real resistance to. While electricity from Paula's attack was still arcing across his body, Giegue was hit by the first of many stars from Poo's PSI Starstorm Omega. Just as Poo's barrage was beginning, Jeff's Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket rocketed into the air and split apart into twenty separate warheads, which rained down upon Giegue, detonating upon impact with Giegue's suit of armor, and even his head on occasion. The devastating barrage of warheads exploded with each hit and the smoke generated from the explosions covered the PSI Alien in a cloud of smoke. The smoke was of no consequence for Ness, though. Ness was able to keep his focus on Giegue and he soon unleashed his PSI Rockin on the PSI Alien. Ness launched the red sphere of psychic energy towards the reeling PSI Alien. The ball of psychic energy rocketed towards the alien and, even with his enhanced reflexes and speed, Giegue was unable to evade the ball. The ball of energy struck him squarely in the chest and detonated, engulfing him in a sphere of scarlet psychic energy. Giegue cried out as the red globe of psychic energy engulfed him. The globe remained for a few seconds before dissipating. Upon dissipating, Giegue emerged from the sphere, battered and bloodied with numerous cuts and burns on his entire body, his suit of armor missing, but alive. Still, smoke was rising from several places on his body. He was on his last legs.

It was now that Giegue regretted not learning PSI Lifeup in any of its forms. He had always been so confident in his own abilities that he had never learned any healing techniques. It was a mistake that Giygas had scolded him for several times before, but he had always shrugged off, saying that he knew better than his older brother, saying that he would not learn an attack that inferior races relied on to try to defeat stronger opponents. Now Giygas was getting the last laugh. The battle was coming to an end. He knew it. That meant that he had nothing left to lose. He focused all of his energy into a final psychic attack that he hoped would inflict damage to the psychic teens. He quickly powered his ball of PSI Murder and unleashed it against the Chosen Four. He knew that his own elemental PSI would not be sufficient to deal much damage to the Chosen Four. He made sure to land the PSI Murder attack among the heroes, rather than strike at them directly, since their psychic counter shields would merely reflect the attack right back at him. He launched his yellow blast of psychic energy at the teens and caused them to scatter. The ball struck the ground and detonated into an expanding yellow sphere that eventually managed to engulf the teens. Still, the shields managed to absorb most of the blast so that they only sustained minimal damage. It was still enough, though, to make Ness use Lifeup Beta on the others so that they would be able to survive the next exchange. He did not want to use up any more energy since he feared the potential of Giegue using a final death attack against them. One thing that had surprised the team was the fact that Giegue had not used PSI Beam Gamma on them once. It was one of Giygas's favorite moves against them, and being Giygas's younger brother, they doubted that Giegue did not know it. It was now that they decided to finish off Giegue once and for all. Giegue was eager to get this last exchange of attacks over with as well. If he were lucky, he figured that he might be able to take down one or two of the Chosen Four in the process. After all, they were all going to be in for a big surprise when they reached the Secret Core.

Giegue began the final exchange by powering a large ball of PSI Murder in his hands after simultaneously powering a PSI Shield Beta over himself. The sphere of yellow psychic energy formed in his hands and he held it out in front of his body, pointing it towards the heroes. Ness and the others responded with attacks of their own. Not wanting to waste weapons or power, Ness powered up a ball PSI Rockin Gamma while Paula powered a blast of PSI Freeze Omega, and Poo powered a barrage of PSI Thunder Omega in order to take down the shield. It was not necessary, though, as Jeff took aim with his Shield Killer and fired a beam that instantly collapsed Giegue's shield. Giegue then launched his PSI Murder Omega at the heroes, who were free to counter with everything they had. Ness countered with his ball of PSI Rockin Gamma and the two attacks sped towards each other. The two balls collided in midair, but it was obvious at impact that Ness's ball of Rockin was stronger. Ness's ball of Rockin pushed against Giegue's ball of Murder and sent it flying back towards Giegue. With the assistance of Poo's PSI Thunder and Paula's PSI Freeze, Giegue never had a chance. Ness's ball of Rockin was the first attack to strike, hitting Giegue in the chest shortly after his PSI Murder Omega had been returned to its sender and exploded. The orange sphere of mixed psychic energy inflicted obscene damage onto Giegue. Poo's PSI Thunder came next, striking Giegue in the chest, burning a hole in his body, all the while causing electricity to arc all over his body, inflicting a series of long and horrible burns on his body. Jeff added a volley of shots from his Gaia Beam pistol, which burned a few small furrows and holes into Giegue's body. The final attack that hit him was Paula's PSI Freeze Omega. The snowflake of psychic energy hit Giegue's body directly as he was staggering from the combined damage inflicted on him by the others and exploded in a shower of snowflakes and ice. The explosion encased Giegue in a block of ice, leaving him completely frozen. The attack, itself, would have been fatal alone combined with the damage dealt by the other psychic attacks, but Ness wanted to make sure that Giegue would never come back. Ness walked up to Giegue's frozen form and held his bat over his head. With a massive swing, Ness brought the bat down on Giegue's head. The strike shattered Giegue into a thousand pieces. The leader of the PSI Aliens was finally dead.

When the battle was over, the quartet took the time to heal themselves before going into the Secret Core, just in case there were some surprises in there. Poo ate some Life Up Cream and a Special Cake in order to restore his physical and mental health. Paula gave Ness a Life Up Cream so that he could recover his strength, too. Ness also ate a Special Cake so that he would restore his full psychic strength as well. Jeff also ate a jar of Life Up Cream in order to heal from the damage dealt by that PSI Murder attack. Once the group had finished healing and readying themselves for the next part of the mission, they made their way into the Secret Core.

Meanwhile, back in Goog's Sanctum, Goog made every attempt to strike Giygas with a punch or a kick, failing with each attempt. Giygas retaliated by merely shoving out an open palm and striking his father in the chest. The attack was not particularly strong, but he managed to force Goog back a few feet. Goog gave a grunt as Giygas struck him. After he halted his skid, he paused for a moment to shake off the effects of the strike before returning to the fight. Goog attempted to use a variation of PSI Thunder on Giygas, but again, he was unable to call upon any of his psychic power. Giygas's block was still holding strong. Goog expected to see Giygas charging him once again, but much to his surprise, the younger PSI Alien merely stood in front of Goog, staring into his eyes. "It doesn't have to end like this, Father," Giygas said in almost a pleading tone.

Goog would hear nothing of it. "Yes, it does, my son!" he roared as he charged Giygas once again. Goog curled his hand into a fist and drew back his arm as he charged Giygas. He gave an animalistic cry as he propelled his fist forward as if it were launched from a spring, aiming directly for Giygas's head. Giygas merely moved his head to his side as the fist came in, causing Goog to strike nothing but air. Goog gritted his teeth and attempted to punch Giygas once again. Giygas swayed out of the way of his next strike as well. Goog now roared and this time, he aimed his punch for Giygas's chest. Giygas did not move, letting Goog score a hit. His fist, however, merely struck Giygas's perfect counter shield, causing the shield to flare before the shield's effects forced Goog backwards, as if he had been hit by his own attack. "Damn you, Giygas," Goog cursed.

Giygas made no response. Instead, he merely stood still. Goog was slow to rise, but when he did, he attempted to focus his energy into a psychic attack. This time, he intended to use PSI Death on Giygas once more. He cupped his hands and stretched out his arms in order to launch the attack the moment the ball formed in his hands, hoping to take Giygas off guard. Much to his chagrin, no energy formed in his hands. He scowled and then decided to try a different tactic. He knew that he could not beat Giygas on offense if he could not launch any psychic attacks, but he was far from defeated. He decided that his best bet at the moment would be to raise a psychic counter shield over himself. He attempted to raise the shield over himself, but he felt no energy emerge from his body and form the necessary protective barrier around him. He then decided that he had nothing left to lose, so he focused on Giygas and decided to charge in for another flurry of punches. Just as he was about to make his move, a green field of energy began to surround his armor. Piece by piece, his armor began to evaporate into thin air. Within a few seconds, Goog was completely naked in front of Giygas. Knowing that it was going to be futile, but seeing little choice, Goog charged his son once more. However, instead of surging forward, he was hurled backwards into the wall once more. He crashed into the wall, leaving another indent and more cracks, and fell to the floor. He looked up and saw his son's outstretched arm. Giygas soon lowered his arm and looked at his father, a sad expression coming over his face. Goog merely focused on his son, rage and anger boiling over. Giygas could feel his father's hate. Still, he gazed at his father with compassion.

"It's not too late, Father," he told him. "You can still change. You can join me."

"Join you?" Goog asked, not believing his ears. "You must be insane! Why would I join you and those worthless human children? You're weak and those children are fools. No one can stop our people."

"Because you don't want to die?" Giygas said, pleading for his father to listen to reason. "You know why I am doing what I am doing. I'm giving you the chance that was given to me by Maria and later by the Chosen Four."

Goog laughed. "Well then let's not beat around the bush. No! Now die!"

With that, Goog managed to finally break through Giygas's block, or so he thought. In reality, Giygas had unblocked his father so that he would know his true response. Giygas then turned his back to his father, who wasted no time powering a ball of PSI Death, only this time with an electrical field surrounding it. This PSI Death was designed to breach any shield. Goog cried as he unleashed the ball of Death on Giygas, "I officially disown you from myself and our people! You are no longer my son, and you are also no longer a PSI Lord!"

"Fine," Giygas shrugged. "Have it your way."

Goog then launched the ball of Death on Giygas, not realizing that Giygas had not only raised his perfect counter shield, but that his shield could protect against any psychic attack, even ones that were specifically designed to phase through shields and/or drain them. Goog's ball of violet and black psychic energy struck Giygas's shield, causing an opaque field of green energy to form as it rebounded the ball of psychic energy back at Goog at twice the previous power. The ball of psychic energy struck him in the chest and detonated. The older PSI Alien screamed as he was engulfed by the resulting sphere of purple and black energy as skin was flayed from his body, and a crater was blasted into the floor. Giygas then powered a blast of PSI Special to finish off his father as his father's sphere of PSI Death dissipated, revealing a smoking PSI Alien that was covered in burns and cuts. Goog's fell to the ground still screaming, writhing and smoking, but still alive. How long Goog would remain alive was another question, though, given that Goog did not know Lifeup. Giygas put an end to his father's physical suffering when he launched his emerald green ball of PSI Special. The ball of Special instantly hit the fallen Goog and detonated. Giygas turned away and did not watch as his psychic attack destroyed his dying father. He could feel his father's presence fade away as he was disintegrated by Giygas's ball of emerald green psychic energy.

Once Giygas felt his father's presence vanish entirely, he knelt down and breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. His father was defeated. Before proceeding, though, he knelt down and said a prayer for his father's soul, that at the end, his father repented of his crimes and was granted entry into Heaven. Once the prayer was finished, he proceeded to scan the rest of the ship for Ness and the others. He quickly found them in the Secret Core. Before he could scan them further to see if they were in the midst of a battle, he heard the Security Alert sirens sounding. He also sensed a large group of PSI Lords, Final Starmen, and other aliens headed towards the bridge so that they could make their way down to the Secret Core. Giygas vowed to not let that happen. He then vanished from his father's inner sanctum and reappeared on the bridge, ready to take on the rush of PSI Lords and other enemies.

Ness was the first to go through the open doors into the dark Secret Core, followed by Paula, who still kept her telepathic senses open for any signs of change or any presence in the room. She focused her gaze forward and telepathically alerted the others, _There's someone in here with us, someone powerful_.

Ness nodded. After Paula came Jeff, who already activated his Counter PSI Helmet, and finally Poo came up behind, keeping watch behind the others. So far, there were no enemies coming up from behind. With no threat coming from the rear, he focused his attention on the room. He scanned the interior of the room and sensed the presence that Paula had warned them about. As the group filed into the room, the first thing that they noticed was how faint the light in the room was, only a single light shined down upon the heroes. They scanned the room, searching for the other presence that Paula had warned them about. As the group moved forward they stepped onto a switch and the light flooded the room. It took a moment for the four to acclimate to the light but once they did, they looked forward, and what they saw astounded them. In front of the heroes was a machine with what looked to be tank in the center. Pipes connected the pod to machines on the ceiling. Inside the tank, a figure floated in what looked to be water. The teens thought that they could see tubes connected to the figure inside. Tubes seemed to be connected to his arms, back, legs, and even head. Upon focusing in on the figure, they saw that it was a PSI Alien. Not only was it a PSI Alien, though, the figure looked frighteningly similar to Giygas. The only difference was that Giygas had milky white skin while this figure had grayer skin. The figure's eyes opened and its voice echoed throughout the room as he said, "Welcome to my lair, Chosen Four. This is the Secret Core of my people. Indeed, the Apple of Enlightenment foretold your arrival on the ship."

The teens recognized the identifying of the Apple of Enlightenment that Porky Minch had spoken of during their battle against him three years ago. Still, it was what the figure said next that worried them the most, "Yes Paula, your guess is correct. I am Dark Giygas, the evil that was cast out of Light Giygas, the Giygas you all know. Once I was cast out of him, in his first foolish attempt to become good, I rejoined the fleet and became the true core of this ship. I am the reason this ship is the way it is. This ship is far more powerful than the other ships in the fleet. Even if the rest of the fleet was lost, this ship would still be able to survive any assault brought to bear against it due to my power." Dark Giygas then gave a menacing laugh. "And it gets even worse for you. The Apple of Enlightenment also predicts your deaths in this fight."

"What about our friends and families?" Ness blurted.

That question took Dark Giygas off guard. "Your families? Oh yes," he said with an eerie grin. "Your friends and family members are all dead, too! They were wiped out in the first battle that opened up your current adventure!" Dark Giygas then proceeded to laugh. His laugh continued to echo throughout the room as the teens congregated together to discuss the current situation.

Any other time, the teens would be devastated and heartbroken at hearing the news about their parents' and families' deaths. However, they could hear a note of falsity in his voice. "I don't believe him for an instant," Ness told the others.

The others nodded in agreement.

"He was lying about the deaths of our families, and I think he suspects that we know it," Paula stated. "However, I think that he did tell the truth about the Apple of Enlightenment predicting our deaths," she added ominously.

That was something the others also agreed on. "No use worrying about it now," Ness stated calmly. "Whatever happens; happens."

The others nodded. With that, they turned to face down Dark Giygas. Dark Giygas gave off a laugh. "I know you managed to defeat my Light counterpart and kill a lot of PSI Aliens in coming here. Don't underestimate me. Those PSI Aliens you fought were only the stragglers that were either too young at the time of the creation of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer to be joined to the Universal Cosmic Destroyer, or too weak to be able to add anything to it, and whose presence would only detract from the perfection that was Giygas. You fought the dregs of our people, the weakest of the weak, those who didn't really deserve the title of PSI Lord. Save for Giygas, and maybe a few others like Giegue or his Elite Guard, you beat up on a bunch of nobodies that weren't _that_ much stronger than a Final Starman."

Ness and the others grinned at Dark Giygas's statement. They knew that a great part of Giygas's strength and power in their fight against him was his ability to use Lifeup, a power that seemingly was not used by any of the PSI Aliens other than Giygas, which means that Giygas must have learned it while studying humans. There was still a chance that Dark Giygas did not know the technique. Still, the teens did not dare to lower their guard. Dark Giygas, since he was suspended in a tank, did not move as his voice cried out, "Now you will know the true power of a PSI Lord!"

An orb of blue psychic energy formed in front of the tank, which prompted Ness to raise his own hands and form a ball of PSI Rockin and take it all the way up to its Omega level. Dark Giygas's ball of psychic energy expanded until it was the size of a small boulder. He then cried out, "PSI Rockin Omega!" That cry took Ness and the others by surprise for a bit. But somehow, Ness was not all that surprised that Dark Giygas knew PSI Rockin Omega, especially if he was cast out of Giygas and Giygas had retained at least some of the knowledge of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer Giygas. Ness merely echoed Giygas's cry with his own, "PSI Rockin Omega!" as his energy ball became the size of a grapefruit.

Dark Giygas then unleashed the ball of psychic energy towards Ness and the others. Poo could feel that the energy emanating from Dark Giygas's ball of Rockin Omega was strong enough to destroy the moon. But he could also feel that Ness's attack was stronger. Ness then unleashed his ball of Rockin and the two balls collided in the air midway between the two combatants. Paula raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party and Jeff focused the abilities of his Counter PSI Helmet on Dark Giygas. The force of the impact created a wave of wind that pushed back Ness and the others. Still, they steeled their resolve and held their ground against Dark Giygas. Seeing that the psychic battle was currently a stalemate, Dark Giygas pushed more energy into his ball. Ness did the same with his ball of Rockin. Ness's ball of Rockin now pushed against Dark Giygas's ball and began to push it back towards the PSI Alien. Dark Giygas's eyes widened as the blast was beginning to head back his way. "No way," he cried out loud, his mouth agape. Nevertheless, his attack was not heading straight back towards him. He tried to raise a psychic shield over himself to intercept the attack, but it was too late. The two attacks collided with his holding tank and detonated, vaporizing the tank. The red and blue spheres of psychic energy detonated and combined to form an indigo sphere. Dark Giygas cried out in rage and pain as the tank was destroyed by the attacks and the fluid that he was submerged in boiled away. After the tank was nothing but subatomic particles, Dark Giygas fell to the floor into a heap. There, he remained, motionless.

The Chosen Four looked at each other in disbelief. "There's no way that this is over," Poo stated quietly as he drew his sword and inched his way closer to Dark Giygas. Ness quickly joined him, as did Paula and Jeff, all of them pointing their weapons a the fallen Dark Giygas. As they began to near the fallen PSI Alien, a squadron of four Elite Mooks appeared before them and grinned, glaring at the teens. Dark Giygas then rose from where he lay and cackled, "You fools! Did you really think that I could be so easily defeated?" He then focused on Poo and cried, "PSI Block!"

Poo and the others grimaced. He was now blocked from using any PSI. Not only that, but the Elite Mooks now glared with their eerie eyes while Ness was going over to help Poo and managed to diamondize Paula and Jeff. Ness quickly used PSI Healing Gamma on Poo to unblock Poo. Before focusing on reviving Paula and Jeff, Ness quickly pulled out two Bags of Dragonite and, giving one to Poo, sprinkled the powder contained in the bag on himself. Poo did likewise. Instantly, the duo transformed into two monstrous dragons with large wings and golden scales. The two then breathed fire on Dark Giygas as well as the four Elite Mooks that he had summoned. The Elite Mooks were instantly incinerated by the blasts of fire, not even leaving any ashes for remains. The ground the Elite Mooks had just been standing on was also transformed into a steaming liquid lake of melted metal, which was slowly cooling back into a solid state. Just as suddenly as the two psychics had transformed into dragons, they returned back to their normal selves. They surveyed the carnage in front of them and found that they only faced Dark Giygas. They took this opportunity use PSI Healing Omega to cure Paula and Jeff of their diamondization. The two diamondized heroes returned to normal and were ready to fight and once again, it was four-on-one.

Dark Giygas then decided that it would be best to summon some more help, since he was uncertain of his ability to defeat the heroes without revealing his true secret. Besides, he did not care for anyone onboard the ship. Dark Giygas opened his hands and slammed them to the ground. A wave of energy emerged from the ground and traveled outwards a few feet. Suddenly, four PSI Aliens appeared before the heroes. As soon as the PSI Aliens appeared, Ness drew two Super Bombs and activated them. Jeff also grabbed one of his Ultra Bombs, as did Poo. While they drew out the weapons, the PSI Aliens fired blasts of PSI Fire, PSI Thunder, and PSI Freeze at the teens. Paula quickly raised a PSI Shield Sigma over the party to protect them, since she had a feeling that Dark Giygas was strong against elemental PSI and felt that the PSI Aliens had the same strengths as well and she wanted to save energy so she could launch more attacks. The psychic attacks splashed against the shield and caused it to strain with each impact. However, her shield managed to hold firm. Dark Giygas, however, fired a blast of PSI Thunderbomb Omega at the teens in addition to the attacks launched by his summoned allies. The PSI Thunderbomb Omega was too much for the shield. It flickered as it was hit and eventually collapsed, allowing some of the electricity to strike the teens. Jeff, not being psychic, suffered the greatest of the damage, but he was still able to throw his Ultra Bomb at the PSI Aliens. Poo also tossed his Ultra Bomb at the PSI Aliens, along with Ness tossing his Super Bomb.

The bombs each landed among the PSI Aliens and exploded, inflicting a great deal of damage to the alien party, scattering them with the explosions. The teens had specifically targeted one of the aliens with their bombs and he was immediately blown to pieces when the bombs exploded. Still, the others had not escaped without injury. One of the other PSI Aliens that had been too close to him also died due to his injuries. The other two PSI Aliens, while they had sustained some moderate injuries, were still able to fight. Ness and Poo changed that, however, when Ness launched a blast of PSI Rockin Gamma at one of the two remaining PSI Aliens, and Poo tossed a Super Bomb at the other. The scarlet orb of energy scored a direct hit on its target and detonated, engulfing the PSI Alien in a sphere of psychic energy that vaporized him. By the time the blast had dissipated, there was nothing left of the PSI Alien. As for Poo's unfortunate victim, he was already the more grievously injured of the two, so when Poo tossed the Super Bomb his way, he was unable to toss it back before it detonated, flinging his now shredded and lifeless body through the air.

Dark Giygas grimaced at the ease of which the PSI Aliens that he had summoned had been disposed of. The Elite Mooks had been more effective against the Chosen Four than these supposedly vastly superior PSI Aliens. He began to wonder if they _should_ have merely been called PSI Aliens, rather than PSI Lords. Dark Giygas shrugged. He figured that he would just have to deal with the heroes himself, now. Dark Giygas began his new assault by stretching out his fingers towards the group. Lightning arced around his fingers for a second before he unleashed a massive stream of PSI Thunder towards the heroes. The lightning managed to strike the heroes directly and inflicted fatal damage to each of them, save for Ness, who was protected by his Franklin Badge, as lightning arced around their bodies. The bolt of lightning that struck Jeff, however, drilled a hole in his torso and he collapsed onto the ground, either unconscious or dead. However, save for Jeff, there were no fatalities as of yet for the heroes. And Jeff would not remain dead for long. As for Ness, Dark Giygas's lightning had been reflected back at him by Ness's Franklin Badge. His own lightning bolt struck him and knocked him backwards and onto the ground. While Dark Giygas was down Ness used Lifeup Omega to heal the rest of the party before they succumbed to their injuries while Poo simultaneously used PSI Healing Omega to revive Jeff. The hole in Jeff's torso closed and his clothes mended. When Jeff rose, it was as if he had never been hit by the attack. However, Dark Giygas was far from finished.

Dark Giygas quickly rose and cried, "PSI Block!" Immediately, Ness felt his psychic powers being blocked. Before Poo could use PSI Healing to heal him, Dark Giygas used PSI Block on him. Now, the only to healers on the team had their psychic powers blocked, and there was no way to restore their powers without using a revival item. While Poo got out his Cup of Lifenoodles, an item that was usually reserved for reviving unconscious or dead people, but could heal status ailments in a pinch as well, Paula and Jeff covered him by drawing out three Ultra Bombs. Paula held two Ultra Bombs in her hand, while Jeff held his only remaining Ultra Bomb. The teens tossed the bombs over to Dark Giygas, while Paula focused on attacking Dark Giygas's mind telepathically. She had, at first, expected to face resistance, but Dark Giygas offered no telepathic resistance to her mental assault. The three bombs landed right next to him and exploded. The explosions tossed him backwards through the air. He landed several yards away, but seemed to suffer little damage. He retaliated with a blast of PSI Rockin Beta. The blue orb of energy rocketed towards Paula and Jeff. Paula pushed Jeff out of the way and took the attack directly, using her psychic abilities to try to absorb the entire attack so that Jeff and the others would not suffer harm. She managed to take the most of the attack, but due to her psychic power, the attack was not fatal. Jeff also only suffered heavy, but non-life threatening injuries. However, that was little comfort as she fell to her knees, her body smoking and her uniform burnt to cinders. The remains of the uniform fell off, revealing her usual attire underneath. Paula took out two one of her remaining cups of Life Up Cream and devoured its contents. Jeff, who had also lost his PSI Alien uniform also took out his last cup of Life Up Cream and ate it, restoring his strength.

As for Ness and Poo, Poo used his Cup of Lifenoodles on himself to unblock himself and restore the use of his psychic powers. He did not like having to use his Cup of Lifenoodles only to unblock himself, but given that Ness was also blocked, it was the only way to free both himself and Ness since Paula did not know PSI Healing. He then proceeded to use PSI Healing on Ness to cure him of being blocked. Ness felt a refreshing sensation come over him. After he was unblocked, Ness drew out a Special Cake and ate it. Poo also decided to heal himself by eating a cup of Life Up Cream. The four then immediately refocused their attention of Dark Giygas.

Ness immediately powered a blast of PSI Rockin Omega, while Paula powered a blast of PSI Freeze Omega, Jeff pulled out an Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket and Poo powered a blast of PSI Starstorm Omega. The group then proceeded to unleash their psychic attacks on Dark Giygas. Dark Giygas made no attempt to evade or block their attacks. He merely stood there, waiting, knowing that there was nothing that they could do to him. All of the attacks converged on him and he was engulfed by a scarlet sphere of psychic energy as a snowflake entered the sphere and detonated, covering him in ice and snow. This was followed by a barrage of rockets from Jeff's Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket and then by Poo's Starstorm Omega barrage. For over twenty seconds, Dark Giygas was relentlessly assaulted by the most powerful attacks that could be unleashed against him. However, once the smoke cleared, he was still standing. Not only was he standing, he was smiling. The teens recoiled in shock.

"My turn," he said, grinning evilly.

Dark Giygas then used his telekinesis to lift the heroes into the air. He cried, "PSI Block!" and blocked Poo's ability to use his psychic power. Ness proceeded to use PSI Healing to unblock Poo. Dark Giygas then used his telekinesis to open the backpacks of the others. He then armed Poo's two Ultra Bombs. Poo used Shield Sigma to protect himself and his friends from the ensuing blast as he pulled off his bombs and tossed them into the air. The bombs exploded in midair. Most of the blast was directed towards Poo, who sustained the most damage. Dark Giygas then fired a blast of PSI Thunder at Poo, which struck him in the chest. Ness had tried to intercept the blast, but was too late. Poo flew through the air, lightning arcing across his body, leaving a number of scars. Before he died, though, Poo drew out one of his two remaining Life Up Creams and ate it. He immediately felt himself being restored to full strength. Dark Giygas was not finished, though. He quickly activated Poo's remaining Super Bomb. Poo was ready for a trick like this, though, and he quickly grabbed the device and tossed it over to Dark Giygas where it exploded, engulfing Dark Giygas in the blast. The teens figured that the attacks had to be taking their toll, especially since they had not sensed him using Lifeup of any level. However, Dark Giygas emerged from the blast, completely unscathed. Poo was incredulous. He had not sensed any sort of shielding over Dark Giygas, so how was Dark Giygas able to escape that explosion completely unscathed? He then sensed Dark Giygas raise a PSI Shield Beta over himself. That told the others that it was time to use physical attacks on him. Ness drew out his two remaining Super Bombs, with Paula drawing one of her two remaining Super Bombs as well. Jeff placed an Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket on the ground, and Poo merely raised a shield over the rest of the party. Ness and Paula tossed their bombs over to Dark Giygas, while Jeff targeted the PSI Alien with his Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket. The rocket flew into the air and separated, raining down warheads onto Dark Giygas. The warheads promptly exploded, along with the bombs, and Dark Giygas was engulfed in flames. Shockingly, when the smoke cleared, Dark Giygas was still standing none the worse for wear.

Dark Giygas retaliated by unleashing a large ball of fire into the air. He cried out, "Fire Rain!" The ball of fire streaked towards the heroes and came to rest over them, where it rained down electricity on them. Before it arrived, though, Dark Giygas cried, "PSI Block!" and blocked Paula's psychic abilities. The large ball of fire formed what looked like a black ash cloud and then proceeded to rain down fire on the teens. Ness and Poo suffered the least damage, while Jeff suffered the most, due to not being psychic. Despite the lack of damage, Ness and Poo's uniforms had burned off by the attack, revealing their usual attire underneath. While the attack had inflicted damage, the streams of flame did not manage to inflict fatal damage to the heroes. Still, Ness and the others took no chances. Paula quickly raised a PSI Shield Omega over the party while Poo raised a Shield Omega to cover them against physical attacks. Poo also gave Jeff his remaining Life Up Cream so that his friend could recover. Paula also used her sole remaining Life Up Cream to heal herself. She considered using a Special Cake to replenish her psychic power, but she decided against it. She was not that low on psychic power, yet, so she did not want to waste a Special Cake too early in the fight. Besides, she could feel that the others were low on psychic energy. One of them might need her Special Cake more than she did. Poo then used PSI Healing to unblock Paula's psychic powers, while Ness drew out an Ultra Bomb and tossed it at Dark Giygas. Dark Giygas merely laughed as he caught the bomb and brought it to his face, where it exploded. Dark Giygas escaped the blast without a scratch and laughed. He then retaliated by crying, "Shield Off" and then firing a PSI Thunderbomb Omega that exploded among the heroes. The attack managed inflicted only light damage to the heroes, save for Ness, who suffered no damage at all, and Jeff. But even Jeff did not suffer fatal damage from the attack. Still, that did not stop Paula from healing him with her last Life Up Cream. Jeff merely growled while reluctantly accepting Paula's Life Up Cream, angry about how much of a burden he seemed to be in this battle.

"Darn it," he complained in anger. "I'm nothing but a burden for the rest of you in this fight!"

"That's nonsense," Paula replied, trying to comfort him. "You're one of the most important allies we have."

"Then why have you already wasted two Life Up Creams on me? You didn't have much problems dealing with those psychic attacks."

"We didn't _waste_ them at all," was Paula's response. "We used them to help you, our friend. Besides," Paula chuckled, "it's not like Ness, Poo, or I have done any better against Dark Giygas."

Jeff returned Paula's chuckle. That much was true. "Thanks, Paula," he said sincerely. "Now, let's take down this jerk," he said with renewed confidence and intensity. The two then went to rejoin Ness and Poo.

While Paula was helping Jeff, Ness and Poo unleashed another volley of psychic attacks on Dark Giygas, who emerged from the psychic assault unscathed once again.

"Don't you fools get it? It doesn't matter what you do or what attacks you use; I can't be killed. I'm immortal. You can attack me as much as you want. It won't matter. I'll always survive. No one can kill me!"

"We'll see about that," Ness retorted.

The group then powered their most powerful attacks once more. Ness powered his PSI Rockin Omega while Paula powered another snowflake of PSI Freeze Omega. Jeff drew out his PSI Disruptor and placed another Advanced Multi Bottle Rocket on the ground and prepared to launch it while Poo powered another barrage of PSI Starstorm Omega. Once the attacks were ready, they unleashed them upon Dark Giygas, who made no attempt to defend himself or deflect the attacks. The attacks came crashing down on Dark Giygas and detonated upon striking him, engulfing him in a red sphere of psychic energy once again. The teens watched as the sphere of Rockin burned Dark Giygas and the warheads, snowflake of Freeze Omega, and the stars of Starstorm Omega battered him. The teens hoped and prayed that this would be enough to defeat him. However, they feared that it would not be sufficient to beat him. Indeed, their fears came to pass as the sphere of Rockin dissipated and Dark Giygas stood at the epicenter of the attacks without so much as a scratch.

But the group was not out of options yet. They still had yet to try one weapon. Paula drew out her Bags of Dragonite and tossed one of them to Ness. Everything else that they had tried had failed, but the flames from the dragons that they transformed into when they used the Bags of Dragonite were magical, rather than psychic, in nature, so they hoped that this would work. If this did not work, though, then there would be merit to Dark Giygas's boast. Ness sprinkled some the powder on him, as did Paula. They both turned into massive dragons and they sprayed magical fire at Dark Giygas. The flames engulfed the evil alien, but the being did not seem to be injured by the flames at all. He was merely laughing as the dragons quickly transformed back into teenaged children. For all intents and purposes, the attack was a dud.

"Now do you four understand?" he asked with an evil grin. "There's nothing you can do to me. I am a product of Giygas. I can't be defeated by you. I don't have Lifeup or Healing. I don't need them. No one can kill me!"

"That's not true," a familiar voice rang out in response from behind the heroes. The heroes turned and found Giygas, or Light Giygas, as Dark Giygas had called him, standing behind them. He then walked forward towards his dark counterpart. Dark Giygas's face widened in fear as Giygas approached. Giygas walked towards him with a confident smile. "_I_ can kill you."


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30:

Giygas stared at his dark counterpart for what seemed to be an eternity, his eyes never wavering. Dark Giygas returned his stare and his eyes started to glow a deep green. Giygas's eyes quickly echoed the glow of Dark Giygas's eyes. At first, the teens thought that the two were sizing each other up, but that thought soon left them. They were opposites of each other, yet also part of the other as well. There was no way they did not know the powers of the other already.

"Giygas," his dark counterpart scoffed. "How did you manage to get all the way down here?"

"I fought my way here," Giygas retorted with a grin. Soon, his expression became stern. "I've put this off for far too long," he eventually said in a quiet and almost relieved tone.

Dark Giygas laughed at Giygas's statement. "Really? And now that you're here, do you really have the guts to go through with it?"

Ness and the others then turned to Giygas. Ness asked, "What does he mean?"

Giygas gave a sigh. "He means, he wonders if I have the guts to go through with fighting him and killing him…and dying when he dies."

The others gasped. "Dying?" Paula asked.

Giygas nodded. "After I was cast out of the Universal Cosmic Destroyer and regained a physical form, I noticed that there was still evil inside of me, waiting to return and claim hold of my body. Naturally, I fought against it, much like you did in your Magicants. I fought my dark side at the time and I emerged victorious, though I could not destroy him. The thing about the PSI Lords is that we chose to be evil and let it become a part of our core essence. There were ways I could have separated the evil from myself, but it would have taken a long time and it would be both dangerous and difficult. Had I done so, though, Dark Giygas would cease to exist. If I were somehow killed in combat, Dark Giygas would cease to exist. Still, Dark Giygas was a part of me, though with me casting him out and him attaining a physical form, he gained a sort of immortality. No one can kill him except me. But in doing so, I will die as well. However, should _he_ manage to kill me, then he may still live on."

"That's not acceptable," Poo roared. "Can you still manage to disconnect yourself from him? We could hold him off while you do it."

Giygas shook his head. "No. My own foolishness and cowardice is what brought it all to this."

Dark Giygas began to laugh. "Yeah, your cowardice _is_ the reason I'm still alive and we're still connected. But about this mad plan of yours, can you go through with it, Light Giygas? Are you willing to kill yourself to kill me and protect an alien species that might still kill itself off?"

"I can," Giygas called out to him in response. He steeled his resolve. "I will!"

Dark Giygas laughed again. "No you won't," he accused. "You'll stop when you have me at your mercy and then you'll fail to kill me because you're too scared to die. But that won't stop me, or the remnants of our people. The human race will die and the PSI Lords will go off into the cosmos to search for another psychic race to kill."

"That's not going to happen!" Ness called out, standing by Giygas. The others quickly joined him.

"Oh look, the kiddy brigade has come to help you," Dark Giygas snickered.

"Don't underestimate us," Jeff warned. He had now drawn his PSI Disruptor and Hungry HP Sucker for the next phase of the battle. Giygas however, held his hands up and ushered the teens behind him.

"You cannot help me, here."

"But…" Paula stammered.

"No," Giygas said more forcefully. "This is my battle. You have to get back to your homes, or at the very least get off this ship. Once I kill Dark Giygas, the core of this ship will overload and destroy the ship, and the rest of our people." He took a breath before continuing, "There is a teleporter three levels down, in section three. The turbolift at the rear of the bridge should allow you to gain access to the level." He then gave Ness a pair of sunglasses. "These glasses will allow you to translate the text on the ship into English. Use that to find the room. I've already programmed the teleporter to get you off this ship and take you to your homes." He then paused before adding, "One more thing. Good luck in finding your family and friends that disappeared when I first attacked Onett long ago on your thirteenth birthday. I know that the Go Somewhere Beam did not kill them."

The teen each breathed a sigh of relief. They had never believed Dark Giygas's boast about the deaths of their parents and other family members, but questions regarding their fates had still lingered at the backs of their minds. Now, even though they had no answers as to where their parents were, they knew that they were likely still alive.

"Hurry," Giygas urged. "You won't have much time once the fighting starts. I'll try to keep from killing Dark Giygas until you're safely away but don't dally. He's powerful and while you've caused him to use up a lot of energy, he's not weak by any means. Also, I cleared most of the way when I fought my way to the Secret Core. However, this is a large ship, so my people will likely have more security forces coming."

Giygas, sensing that Dark Giygas was powering an attack, raised a perfect shield over himself, and the rest of the party, to protect them from Dark Giygas's attack. Dark Giygas cried, "Thunder Rain Omega," and a volley of lightning bolts descended from a psychic cloud onto Giygas and the other heroes. Fortunately, Giygas's shield managed to deflect the bolts of lightning away from him and the heroes. "Heal yourselves and get going," Giygas told them. The Four drew out some healing items and used them to heal themselves completely. Ness took out two Brain Food Dinners and devoured one of them, completely healing himself both physically and mentally. He gave the other one to Poo, who quickly ate his. Paula also ate her one of her own Brain Food Dinners to completely heal herself as well. "Also, wear a Smash Franklin Badge for protection. The badges should last long enough for you down to reach the teleporter."

The teens quickly took one Smash Franklin Badge each out of their backpacks and put them in their pocket. They did not want to put them on and activate them until they came upon any remaining PSI Aliens and Starmen. "Now go," Giygas commanded them. "You won't have all that long to get out of here. Hurry!"

The teens hesitated for a moment, but then smiled and gave Giygas a thumbs up. Giygas then echoed their gesture. After the salute, the Chosen Four turned away from Giygas and headed out of the Secret Core, and back down the corridor that led to the bridge. "Good luck," Giygas wished for them. Once they were out of sight he then turned back to the physical manifestation of the evil that he had attempted to cast out of his heart. "It's just you and me, now!" And with that, Giygas launched his attack.

The teens ran down the corridor, following it all the way back to the bridge. Paula, being the telepath and early warning sensor, led the way, followed by Poo, then Jeff, and finally Ness. Along the way, they encountered no resistance but as they neared the bridge, Paula held up her hands. The others stopped. Paula had sensed something. "There are PSI Aliens on the bridge and they have escorts as well: Final Starmen and Elite Mooks."

This did not sound promising. They knew that their Smash Franklin Badges would stop any direct damaging attack or projectile weapon, but they did not know if the badges would protect them from the diamondizing gazes of the Elite Mooks. Before going out onto the bridge, the four slapped their Smash Franklin Badges to their chests. Once they had provided themselves their new armor, they stormed onto the bridge and were met by four PSI Aliens, with four squadrons of four Final Starmen and four Elite Mooks, each. Paula and Ness were beginning to wish that they had not blown their last two Bags of Dragonite on Dark Giygas. Those bags would have been really useful at this moment. They knew that they would only get one shot with the Smash Franklin Badges before the Final Starmen and the PSI Aliens realized the folly of using any type of projectile attack on them and resorted to close combat weaponry, be it normal or psychic. They realized that their best hope for emerging victorious from this upcoming battle was that the Elite Mooks would use other psychic attacks on them rather than try to diamondize them with their glares.

The PSI Aliens and Final Starmen started off the encounter predictably enough by powering PSI Starstorm Omega attacks. The teens did nothing to dissuade them from using such attacks. The more damaging the projectile attack used against them was, the better. Their concern was what the Elite Mooks would do. The Elite Mooks alleviated their concerns by powering blasts of PSI Freeze Gamma and PSI Fire Gamma. The teens calmed down upon seeing the Mooks power their psychic powers, rather than try to diamondize them with their glares. They knew now that the Elite Mooks were not going to do anything that was actually capable of hurting them. The teens merely stood still and let the enemy forces unleash their psychic might against them. All Jeff did was identify the Final Starmen and fire a volley of blasts from his Shield Killer at them in order to take down their PSI Shield Betas. Hundreds of stars from the large number of Starstorm Omega barrages of the Final Starmen and the PSI Aliens fell upon the heroes along with sixteen blasts of PSI Freeze and PSI Fire. The teens stood their ground as the massive psychic assault bore down on them. The psychic stars and streams of fire and ice struck the heroes but numerous metallic clangs rang out as the stars of Starstorm and blasts of fire and ice were reflected back at the PSI Aliens and their minions. It sounded like a high-pitched screech, given the number of psychic attacks that were being reflected by the Smash Franklin Badges. The rebounded stars landed among the PSI Aliens and their minions and blew massive holes in the ranks of the enemy, as well as obliterating a lot of the architecture of the bridge of the ship in the process. The Elite Mooks were completely annihilated by the attacks, and the PSI Aliens took a great deal of damage from their reflected attacks. Two of the PSI Aliens were killed by the rebounded attacks, but the other two were more fortunate. They had managed to raise psychic shields over themselves to absorb some of the impact and blunt the rest of the blow. As for the Final Starmen, several Final Starmen had had their shields stripped of them by Jeff and were instantly annihilated by their reflected attacks. The others, however, were still protected and the reflected attacks bounced off of their shields and back towards the Chosen Four, who merely let the remaining stars bounce off their bodies and get reflected back at the Final Starmen. In the meantime, Jeff had taken the shields off of a few more Final Starmen and upon the second return volley, the now shieldless Final Starmen were killed by their own attack. The remaining Final Starmen that still had their shields stood by and waited as their shields reflected the attacks back at the heroes, all the while, Jeff continued to fire off beams from his Shield Killer at the Final Starmen, stripping the rest of the Final Starmen of their shields. The other teens did not engage them since they did not want to waste any psychic energy against these Starmen. They wanted to wait until the Smash Franklin Badges fell off before using any psychic energy in battle. Ness and Poo, however, did not want to let the surviving PSI Aliens off the hook, and quickly went in to engage them. The remaining stars fell among the Final Starmen and exploded, taking them all out since Jeff had finally stripped the remaining Final Starmen of their shields.

As for Ness and Poo, they charged towards the staggered PSI Aliens, who looked to be on their last legs, having to sustain a full-scale attack from dozens of PSI Starstorm Omegas. Most PSI Aliens would have been killed by the attacks, but these PSI Aliens were resilient. Ness and Poo, however, wanted to make sure that they could not bother them now or later. When they arrived near the Final Starmen, they took mighty swings with their weapons. Poo managed to behead one of the PSI Aliens, whose lifeless body collapsed onto the floor as his head flew off his shoulders. Ness's swing managed to shatter the skull of his PSI Alien. The likely dead PSI Alien fell to the floor, either unconscious or dead. Ness made certain that he was dead by bashing him in the head repeatedly. Once he was certain that said PSI Alien would never be a threat again, he proceeded to lead the others to the elevator that would take them down three levels to the teleporter. They quickly called the elevator and when the doors slid open, they boarded the elevator and took it down to their destination three levels below the bridge.

Meanwhile, Dark Giygas was using his entire arsenal of psychic attacks on Giygas. He first came at Giygas with a PSI Firebomb Omega, which Giygas's perfect shield absorbed effortlessly. The next attack that he tried was a PSI Thunderbomb Omega, which was also useless against Giygas. Dark Giygas roared in frustration as Giygas made no attempt to attack him, despite seemingly being the stronger combatant. Dark Giygas then charged Giygas and quickly decided to engage him in close combat. He threw a punch at Giygas's head, which Giygas deftly avoided. He then threw a punch at Giygas's gut, which Giygas managed to sidestep easily as well. His next move was a roundhouse kick which, Giygas ducked under, which he followed through with a spinning back heel kick. Giygas raised his left arm and intercepted the attack. Giygas then threw a punch into Dark Giygas's groin area. Dark Giygas's eyes went wide and he howled in pain as he was thrown back by the punch. Giygas smiled as Dark Giygas fell to the floor, crying. Dark Giygas attempted to rise, but he was still hurting too much from the effects of the punch. He looked up weakly at Giygas. "You…bastard," he spat with all the venom and vitriol that he could muster, through all his suffering.

"You are too since you come from me," Giygas responded coolly, which only fueled Dark Giygas's anger.

Eventually, Dark Giygas managed to rise and stand up, despite the pain, due to his absolute hatred for his Light counterpart. "Die!" he cried at the top of his lungs as he rushed Giygas. Giygas merely used his telekinesis to stop his forward momentum. Giygas then lifted him up again and brought him towards a bar that he lifted from the floor, groin first. Giygas then smashed the two together and Dark Giygas howled once again in agony. Giygas did not smile this time, though. He did not want to risk overdoing it. He needed Dark Giygas to survive until Ness and his friends had safely gotten off the ship and returned to their homes, wherever or whenever they turned out to be. Dark Giygas struggled to rise from the floor, holding his groin and moaning in pain.

"You…traitorous…scumbag," he grunted. "I'll…kill…you…yet." His words were awkward, mainly due to the pain. While he could not engage Giygas in physical combat anymore for a while, he was far from finished.

Dark Giygas weakly held up his hands and powered a blue sphere of energy. He knew that this was his greatest chance of defeating his Light counterpart. He weakly called, "PSI Rockin Omega!" The blue sphere grew in size until it was only the size of a small boulder.

Giygas was not impressed. "Fool," he chastised. "Using someone else's attack as your own ultimate attack, especially when you should already know all of my attacks."

Dark Giygas gave a primal roar as he launched the blast of "Rockin" in response. Giygas merely added power to his perfect shield and let the blast hit him in the chest. The blue boulder hit his shield and an opaque blue semicircle formed over Giygas as the blast exploded and engulfed Giygas. After a few seconds the blast dissipated, and Giygas emerged completely unharmed. Dark Giygas recoiled in surprise. "But how? I'm supposed to be as strong as you!"

"You've gotten weak, my dark self. Or rather, you haven't gotten any stronger, while I have. Much stronger." He then grinned as he cried, "PSI Block!"

Dark Giygas grinned. "You'll have to do better than that. PSI Rockin Omega!" Dark Giygas tried to power a sphere of Rockin, but no energy formed in his hand. Dark Giygas's eyes went wide in surprise. He then tried another attack. "PSI Thunder!" Again, nothing happened.

"I have blocked your psychic powers completely," Giygas explained. "The block lasts for quite a while if left unhealed. For weak psychics, it can block them for weeks. For stronger psychics it will only last for days, or hours at least. Needless to say, all I have to do now is wait." Giygas then created a chair from the metal that was lying around on the cratered ground and waited. Dark Giygas merely smiled.

"But when the time comes, will you be able to go through with it?" he asked ominously. He, too, then waited for the end to come.

The teens disembarked from the elevator and found themselves in a deserted corridor. They quickly proceeded down the corridor looking for the teleportation room. They scanned the writing on the various doors, not understanding the language of the PSI Aliens. Ness then put on the sunglasses that Giygas had given him and used them to translate the writing on the walls and on several bars that extended down from the ceiling. They were still in Section Two. They figured that it would not be long before they reached Section Three.

Sure enough, they reached Section Three after coming to a corner and taking a right turn. Unfortunately, a Final Starman and a group of six Roswell Grays were standing in the corridor, waiting for the teens. The Roswell Grays were enemies that the teens had not encountered in quite a while, relatively speaking, and were surprised to find facing them at the moment. The teens looked down at their chests and found that the Smash Franklin Badges were still attached. The Roswell Grays, not noticing the badges, took aim with their energy pistols and opened fire. Purple pulses of plasma erupted from the barrels of the guns and streaked towards the heroes. The humans merely stood there, letting the beams strike them. The plasma pulses struck the teens and the familiar clang of an impact with a Franklin Badge, in this case a Smash Franklin Badge, rang out as the plasma pulses were redirected back towards the aliens. The pulses struck the Roswell Grays in the chest and felled each of them. The Roswell Grays fell with merely single hits, leaving the Final Starman.

The Final Starman, after seeing the deaths of the rest of the soldiers in his squadron, decided that his only chance was to engage the teens in close quarters combat. This was easier said than done, given the fact that the Chosen Four outnumbered the Final Starman four-to-one. With only one Final Starman to deal with, the teens decided to not waste any psychic energy and decided to close to melee range as well, with Jeff hanging back and beginning by taking a few shots at the Final Starman. Scarlet pulses erupted from the barrel of the Gaia Beam pistol and crossed the distance to the Final Starman at the speed of light. The pulses managed to find their mark and burned several holes into the golden suit of the Final Starman. However, the pulses were not enough to fell the Final Starman. The Starman staggered backwards, but managed to maintain his balance and focus on the teens once more. Things would soon to change, though, as Ness, Paula, and Poo closed into melee range of the Final Starman. Ness began the attack with a single swing of his bat. Swinging with all of his might, he targeted the ribcage, or what would have been the ribcage of the Final Starman had he been human. The crack of bones indicated that something was broken, as well as the Final Starman's keeling over in pain. Paula was the next to attack bashing the Starman in the head with her frying pan. A clank rang out as her Holy Frying Pan struck the Final Starman on the head. The Final Starman fell to the floor, either unconscious or dead, as a result of Paula's attack. Poo made his fate certain with a series of stabs both to the head and chest of the fallen Final Starman. It was during this fight that the Smash Franklin Badges gave out and fell off of the heroes, and turned to dust as they hit the floor. The teens barely noticed the falling of the Smash Franklin Badges, and only found that the badges had fallen off after they went to look themselves over after the Final Starman was dead. After the battle, the group went over to the fallen Roswell Grays and examined their bodies, looking for any weapons or items that they could use to aid in their escape. The eyes of the teens were drawn to what looked to be Roswell Gray, or PSI Alien, versions of rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Jeff leaned down and saw that missiles were loaded into the launchers. Jeff lifted up one of the launchers and found that it was quite light and easy to maneuver. Ness picked up the other launcher and slung it over his shoulder. They did have one reload, each, though, which they knew would be helpful. The teens then searched the other bodies for weapons and items as well. While they did not find any weapons, they did manage to find a Diamond Band and a rock of Meteotite. They figured that the RPGs would be enough for their purposes, though. Jeff handed his RPG to Poo so that if they encountered another PSI Alien before their escape, then they would be able to fight him off without having to resort to using psychic energy. They had a feeling that their adventure was likely not over yet.

Once they were equipped, the teens headed out. It did not take long for them to reach Section Three. In this section, the teens were met by a single PSI Alien and a squadron of four Final Starmen. Ness, Poo, and Jeff wasted no time drawing out their weapons and opening fire on the enemy forces. Ness and Poo took aim with their RPGs and fired on the PSI Alien and his Final Starman cohorts. The missiles erupted from the launchers and scored direct hits on the PSI Alien, along with Jeff firing some shots from his Gaia Beam pistol and PSI Disruptor. The shots from the PSI Disruptor managed to disrupt the PSI Alien's attempt to raise a shield to protect himself from the incoming missiles. The missiles struck him and detonated, engulfing him and the rest of his squadron in two balls of fire. The missiles seemed to be as powerful as a normal Multi Bottle Rocket, which was saying something. The explosions tossed the bodies of the Final Starman around like rag dolls. Each of them landed a ways away from the PSI Alien, either unconscious or dead. Even the PSI Alien was thrown backwards a few yards, obviously injured by the explosions. Still, he was far from beaten. As Ness and Poo were reloading in order to finish off the PSI Alien, Jeff kept unloading blasts from his PSI Disruptor and Gaia Beam pistol into the PSI Alien, hoping to keep him occupied and unable to focus on concentrating on using his psychic powers. Jeff also activated his Counter PSI Helmet to make it that much harder for the alien to utilize his psychic powers. Soon, Ness and Poo had reloaded the launchers, which seemed designed for ease of use, and took aim at the PSI Alien once more. They pulled the triggers and once again, missiles leapt from the launchers. The PSI Alien, who had not even managed to launch a single attack, saw the missiles and tried to raise a shield over his body to protect himself, but the disruption coming from the blond boy's PSI Disruptor and Counter PSI Helmet were too much for the alien to overcome so quickly. He then tried to evade the missiles, but was unable to evade the missiles as they struck the ground a foot to his left and detonated. The explosion blew apart the PSI Alien, ending his threat permanently. Before proceeding, they examined the remains of the PSI Alien's body, seeing if the alien had any items or equipment that would be useful to the teens. Unfortunately, they found no weapons or healing items on or near the body, but Ness did find a rock of Meteornium. Knowing that such a rock was likely to be worth a lot of money should they need the cash in the future, he took the rock and put it in his backpack. After they were finished, the group continued on its way.

The level was clear of enemies after the brief encounter with the PSI Alien. Jeff checked his PSI Disruptor and noticed that it was low on power, so he ejected the nearly spent power pack and replaced it with a fresh one. Ness and Paula led the way down the corridor, with Jeff and Poo following close behind. Ness scanned the signs, but the translated text indicated that the rooms lining the corridor were merely lounges and observatories. Paula scanned the surroundings and found that the crew members, PSI Aliens, Elves of various breeds, Roswell Grays, and Starmen of all ranks, were engaging in various activities and pleasures in the rooms. Jeff's Counter PSI Helmet allowed the humans to walk among these rooms undetected. Ness continued to scan the signs above the rooms until he came across the teleportation room. "I found it," Ness called out to the others, pointing to the room that housed the teleporter. Before entering the room, Paula went over to the door and extended her telepathic senses beyond the doorway to see who, if anyone, was inside. Paula found that the room was completely deserted, which surprised her greatly. She returned to the rest of the group and reported, "I'm not sensing anyone in there. But I'd still be careful if I were you," she warned. She knew that so far, save for Giygas, Giegue, and Dark Giygas, the PSI Aliens that they had faced were not the elites of their race. If anything, they were the weakest of the weak. Still, the teens knew that they were close to the end of their journey, or so it seemed. Ness and the others then approached the door, weapons drawn, and waited for it to slide open. The door slid open, but no one was on the other side to meet them. The teens then entered and the door slid closed behind them.

Inside the teleportation room, indeed, there were no other enemies inside to meet them. After the doors slid closed, Jeff went over to the control panel and locked the door so that no one else would be able to get into the room. The teens looked in front of them and found the teleporter, which seemed to be represented by a floor pad in front of them. The pad looked like it could hold six people. It looked a lot like a Transporter from Star Trek. Ness peered through his sunglasses and found that the glasses seemed to be no longer functioning properly. He took them off and set them down on the chair and looked at the console. The writing on the console was already in English. There were instructions on how to use the teleporter on the screen as well. Ness skimmed through the instructions and quickly saw that Giygas had already put everything in order. All he had to do was to get Paula, Jeff, and Poo on the pad and program in which pads were being used, and to activate the fourth pad that would be used by him as well. Paula, Jeff, and Poo quickly took three of the closer pads, leaving one of them for Ness. Ness followed the instructions and programmed in the pads that were going to be used by the teens. He also programmed in his own, currently unoccupied pad, and set the program to activate the teleportation of Ness and the others ten seconds from the time the data was finally entered into the computer. Ness entered the data and then pushed the big red "enter" button on the pad. He then rushed to his pad as the computer counted down, "Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…five…four…three…two…one."

After the "one" a field of energy surrounded the four heroes and a columns of light sprang forth around them, reaching up to the ceiling. A high-pitched hum reverberated throughout the room as the teleporter was activated. The pillars of light then formed what looked to be blue crystals around the teens and the crystals spun as the heroes rose into the air and were suspended in midair for a few seconds before they quickly dematerialized and were carried across space and time.

Back in the Secret Core, Giygas sensed the activation of the teleporter and the disappearance of the Chosen Four. "Finally," he said with satisfaction, relief, and exhilaration. "It's time for this to end, once and for all."

Dark Giygas laughed once again, grunting when a laugh caused him to move too much, still suffering the effects of the beating he sustained at Giygas's hands. "But will you go through with it, Giygas? The kids are safe, now. You don't have to die."

Giygas merely grinned. "I'm at peace with dying now. Yes, I could have averted this earlier and broken our link to no ill effect, but I was stupid, cowardly, and evil. This is my retribution for my earlier betrayal of Ness and the others." He then stared Dark Giygas in the eyes. "And I will not take any risks in the salvation of Planet Earth. I am going to be with Mother, now."

Dark Giygas merely laughed once again. "You want to know your mother's secret? When you were born, she hated your guts. She tried to have you killed at first, only to later accept your life since you would be a strong soldier."

"I wasn't talking about my birth mother," Giygas said, smirking. "I was talking about my true mother; the one who raised me, Maria."

Giygas then proceeded to power one final sphere of PSI Special Omega. He could sense the ship approaching the Earth and adjusted the explosiveness of his attack so that the blast would not destroy the Earth as well. Dark Giygas saw the green ball of Special form in Giygas's hands and weakly held up his hands. "No, don't! You'll die too!" he pleaded, trying to convince Giygas not to carry out his plan. His cries fell on deaf ears, though, as Giygas continued to power the attack.

Eventually, the attack was fully powered and ready to be unleashed. He pointed at Dark Giygas and he cried, "It ends now! PSI Special Omega!"

The massive emerald green ball of Special Omega leapt from Giygas's hands and rocketed towards Dark Giygas. Still being blocked by Giygas's own PSI Block, he was unable to mount any sort of defense as the emerald ball of pulsing psychic energy hit him in the chest and detonated, engulfing him in a green sphere which merely expanded outwards. As Dark Giygas was disintegrated by the attack, Giygas felt his life leaving his body. It was surprisingly painless. He soon found himself staring down at his now lifeless body as his PSI Special attack expanded and engulfed his own body as well. The death of Dark Giygas set off a chain reaction throughout the ship. The containment system for the massive core collapsed, since Dark Giygas's existence was not keeping it together, and the now uncontrolled matter-antimatter reaction went out of control.

The fireball that was generated in the Secret Core expanded throughout the ship, melting and vaporizing walls, bulkheads and crew alike. For the moments before the ship exploded, the PSI Aliens could feel that they were about to die, but could do nothing about it since the ship's shields were still up, preventing them from teleporting out of the ship. Giygas watched as the fireball washed over the remnants of his species and their servants. He knew that there were still some Starmen, Mooks, High Star Elves, Roswell Grays, and other members of his servant races in other parts of the universe, but they were very few in number, relatively speaking, and in no position to reach Earth, or approach the level of the threat that his species had posed. He watched as the fireball expanded towards the outer hull and burst through the windows, shattering them. The concussion wave pressed against the frame of the ship, eventually causing it to shatter and break outward. The metallic plates that had once been the hull of the ship were violently propelled away from the center of the Secret Core as the shields collapsed, too late to save any of the PSI Aliens, who had been vaporized by the explosion earlier. The ship then exploded, with Giygas watching its fiery death from another realm. He wondered if it was okay to smile at the death of his species. Despite their evil, they had still been living beings. Still, the salvation of the Earth, and the other races that would have met their end at the hands of the PSI Aliens was worth it in his eyes.

Giygas continued to look down at the Earth as he felt relief and elation at the sight of the massive fireball in the sky over the Earth. Upon witnessing the fireball in the night sky, the humans knew that the war was finally over. He knew that they had suffered severe casualties during the war, but he felt that they would do alright. He felt the familiar presence of his mother, Maria arrive next to him as he looked down upon the Milky Way Galaxy, and Earth in particular. He knew that humanity would do okay. He looked over at Maria and smiled. She sided up next to him and gave him a hug, which he returned. He looked behind her and found George coming as well, a warm and welcoming smile on his face. Soon, other faces appeared, some of them quite familiar. He saw Ninten and Ana, as well as their own children approach him. Despite the youthful appearances of Ninten, Ana, and their children, he knew that they had lived long, productive lives and died of old age. He also met other descendants of George and Maria, but when he looked down at the Earth, he found that something was wrong. He knew that the normal timeline, or timelines, still existed, but he was looking at a timeline that was greatly changed. He sensed no more than maybe ten thousand humans on the planet. All of them were concentrated on a small chain of islands. He eventually sensed the presence of Ness and his friends in that timeline. He was surprised that the children had arrived there. He also sensed the presence of an old "friend" as well. It was then that he sensed the one thing he had not expected at all. "No!" he cried. He knew that the adventures of Ness and the others were not over yet.

Ness and the others rematerialized in the center of a town that they did not recognize. Upon appearing in the town, they scanned their surroundings to get a better idea of where they were. They first took stock of themselves to make sure that they had arrived safely. So far, they felt fine, and upon further examination of themselves, they seemed to be fine as well. They looked at each other and then scanned their surroundings once again. They quickly realized that they were not where they had expected. This was not Onett. "Guys, where are we?" Paula asked.

"I don't know," Ness eventually responded, as the group continued to scan the town. The bustling town did not seem to take notice of the newcomers. The teens knew one thing, though. This was not where they had expected to be, and it was no place that they recognized at all.

Deep beneath the island that the teens found themselves on, it waited. The being's mind stirred in the darkness at the sensation of the new arrivals. For thousands of loops it had been the same old, same old. Nothing had changed at all. With the arrival of the four teens, things were going to change, especially since the being knew these teens all too well. It had been waiting for this moment for so long, it could barely contain its excitement. For the first time in a long time, it spoke; it's voice a laugh of complete madness and insanity. "Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness, Ness…"

End…?


End file.
